Data is clear that people who are vaccinated, overall, are less likely to test positive for COVID-19 regardless of the variant, compared to people who are unvaccinated. 

For instance, recent data from New York City – which has been hit hard by the surge in cases from the Omicron variant – show that in the week of January 3rd, about 219 fully vaccinated adults out of 100,000 fully vaccinated adults were confirmed to have COVID-19, and about 1,706 unvaccinated adults out of 100,000 unvaccinated adults were confirmed to have COVID-19. That makes unvaccinated adults about eight times more likely to get COVID-19 than vaccinated adults. Recent data from Denmark also show that COVID-19​ infections are about four times more prevalent among the unvaccinated compared to the vaccines. Data is similar beyond these two examples across a range of countries and contexts.

Importantly, data also show that people who are vaccinated are much less likely to have severe disease or be hospitalized due to COVID-19, compared to people who are unvaccinated. 

For instance, the same NYC dataset shows that in the week of January 3rd, about 5.8 fully vaccinated adults out of 100,000 fully vaccinated adults were hospitalized for COVID-19, and that about 74.6 unvaccinated adults out of 100,000 unvaccinated adults are being hospitalized with COVID-19, making unvaccinated adults about 13 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than unvaccinated adults.

Research also shows, however, that though vaccinated people are still less likely to get COVID-19 across all variants, vaccinated people are much more likely to get the Omicron variant than any other variant. 

This makes sense. Because the vaccine works much better against the Delta variant than Omicron, we would expect that whatever infections arise among people who are vaccinated are more likely to be Omicron. In other words, the vast majority of breakthrough cases are Omicron whereas there is more variability among unvaccinated people who get infected.

Given that Omicron is more transmissible and more likely to be able to evade vaccines, more people who are fully vaccinated, and even have boosters, are getting Omicron.

Increases in COVID-19 among vaccinated people is being falsely misinterpreted as evidence that those who have gotten their shots are more likely to get infected than those who haven't been jabbed.

This is not the case. Data shows that vaccinated people are less likely to test positive for COVID-19 regardless of the variant, compared to people who are unvaccinated, as well as less likely to have a severe case or be hospitalized if infected with COVID-19. 

One of the major reasons for misinterpretation is that the vast majority of breakthrough cases are Omicron, whereas there is more variability when it comes to which variant an unvaccinated person may catch. 

Many people have also been citing one preprint Danish study that showed vaccine protection against Omicron becoming negative (in other words, making you more vulnerable to Omicron). This data does not mean that people who are vaccinated from Omicron are more likely to get it. It requires further interpretation considering context, including the following:

1. Different behavior or exposure patterns in the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated are likely causing an underestimation of the vaccines’ effectiveness. In other words, given that vaccinated people are engaging in riskier behaviors such as travel and indoor dining, it’s difficult to directly compare the two groups. 
2. It is possible that vaccinated people are testing more, which would result in a higher representation of case numbers among the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.

People are also misinterpreting a Danish report to mean that vaccination puts you at higher risk for Omicron than not being vaccinated. In many places, more people are vaccinated than those who are unvaccinated. As a result, data that is presenting absolute case numbers and not dividing that number by the total number of people in each group should be interpreted with caution, given that they aren’t taking into account the number of people.