If you have cancer and you’ve been vaccinated against Covid-19, risks remain higher for you than those without cancer, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Breakthrough infections, which occur in those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, are more troubling for people with cancer than those without, a new study confirms. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, reviews the data.

Nelson: The severity was also concerning. If you looked among the people who got an infection who had been vaccinated, with cancer, 31 to 32% of them ended up in the hospital and 3.9% of them died as a result of this infection. Probably still need to be careful, even if you’re vaccinated, and you have a cancer. We had a pretty good understanding about hematologic malignancies. I think it’s a little surprising that that fraction of folks with pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, were vulnerable to get a breakthrough infection even if they’d been vaccinated.  :32

Nelson urges people with cancer to obtain all vaccinations and boosters they are eligible for, and to make thoughtful choices when it comes to socializing, traveling, and wearing a mask. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.