This is NPR's life kit. I'm Elsa Chang.

It's another unsettling moment in this pandemic.

Even people who are vaccinated are wondering if it's time to be cautious again,

given the rising cases, the fast spreading delta variant,

and reports of vaccinated people testing positive from Olympic athletes to Texas lawmakers,

even a White House staffer. So this episode we're going to be joined by Alison Aubrey,

who's going to give us some guidance. Alison, thank you for being here.

Hi there Elsa, good to be here. Good to have you. Okay, so people who are fully vaccinated,

like myself, are looking for some reassurance right now that they are still going to be protected

against this delta variant. Can you offer any reassurance? Yeah, the vaccines are incredibly

effective against serious illness from the delta variant. For example, a recent study from the UK

found that the Pfizer vaccine is 96 percent effective against hospitalization from the delta variant

after two doses. Now I talked to Dr. Mark Boome, he's the CEO of Houston Methodist Hospital.

He says 90 percent of the people hospitalized there now with COVID are unvaccinated,

and they have doubled the number of COVID patients they had two weeks ago.

Every indicator right now is flashing bright red at us and moving at a very quick rate.

We're very obviously disappointed in this, and frankly, this was entirely avoidable if everybody

had gone and gotten vaccinated as we've all been urging. So clearly unvaccinated people remain

at risk. Right, but what about fully vaccinated people testing positive right now? Like,

should we be freaking out? You know, there is a very big difference between simply testing positive

and getting sick enough to end up in the hospital with COVID. The whole promise of the vaccines is

that they would protect against serious illness and death, and they do. It was not realistic to think

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