TAMPA, Fla — As restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 loosen across the country, doctors are reminding people "breakthrough" cases are still possible.
"They called me and told me that they were sick. They'd just tested positive," Tampa native Mike Flattop said.
He experienced it firsthand.
He had just had lunch with a friend a few days ago when he got the phone call many dread. They were positive with COVID-19, and he had been exposed.
"I called the doctor immediately after my phone call, within minutes of them getting off the phone with me, to tell him I knew I'd been exposed," Flattop said.
Two days after Mike spoke to his doctor. he wound up at Tampa General Hospital in the COVID unit for four days. His doctor told him the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine might've saved his life.
"If it would have been worse than that, I don't know if I would've lived. I'm grateful I got the first Pfizer vaccine," Flattop said.
Lucky is an understatement. Mike is a heart patient. His doctor says the immunity induced by the shot he had gotten nine days prior to getting sick actually worked.
"When you think about an individual who's a heart patient, as you say, and anybody with any comorbidities that could put them at higher risk for disease, if the vaccine prevents it from becoming serious we've really done the job," Dr. Jill Roberts with USF Public Health said.
Despite the protection from the vaccine, epidemiologists say it's still possible for people to get sick. But those "breakthrough" cases are actually rare.
According to the CDC, nearly all activities people stopped doing during the pandemic are safe once you get a vaccine.
"We're getting to that point where we're seeing that the vaccines are working. There's a return to normalcy and we have so much data to show how safe they really are. I hope people are coming off the fence and saying, 'Okay, I really want to join this group and go out there and get vaccinated,'" Roberts said.
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