Fully Vaccinated Olympian Hospitalized With COVID-19, Withdraws From Competition

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Madison Wilson shared her frustration on social media after testing positive for COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated.

The 27-year old Australian swimmer was forced to pull out of the International Swimming League (ISL) in Naples, Italy after contracting the novel coronavirus. On Sunday, she announced that she got infected with the virus through her Instagram account.

Wilson, who won the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics' 200-meter women's freestyle, was the LA Current's highest-scoring swimmer in the ISL. However, her withdrawal from the competition left her team with a huge dent in their ongoing campaign.

In a post, Wilson formally announced that she is withdrawing from the ISL and will be missing Match 8. She is currently hospitalized in Naples.

"I am extremely disappointed and upset not to be racing alongside my teammates in match 8 here in the ISL. I recently tested positive for COVID and yesterday was moved into [a] hospital for further care and observation," Wilson wrote.

"Even though I am double vaccinated and took the right precaution set in place through the ISL, I have managed to fall to this virus. It's been a crazy few months and I believe being run down physically and mentally may have made me more susceptible."

Like the rest of the Australian Olympic delegation, Wilson received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine before campaigning at the Tokyo Olympics in July.

When asked, Wilson said that she had no idea where she contracted the virus. However, one possible reason may be the more relaxed health and safety protocols among participants in the ISL this season, Swimswam noted.

Last year, the ISL implemented a strict "full bubble" environment for all participants in Budapest, Hungary. All participants were prohibited from going out in public for recreation and other purposes. In addition, before the competition, everyone in the ISL served a brief quarantine period and was regularly tested.

This season, while participants underwent a brief quarantine period and the majority of the participants were fully vaccinated, they are allowed to visit restaurants, within the limits of local guidelines

Wilson's case is categorized as a "breakthrough infection" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Breakthrough infections are very rare and make up only 2% of people infected with COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. Often, breakthrough cases only manifest mild symptoms of COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated individuals.

Wilson accumulated 108.5 points and was ranked 14th overall after match No. 7 seven last week, which helped the LA Current place third.

She dominated the women's 200m freestyle in matches 2, 4 and 5. She also topped the 400m and 100m freestyle events in matches 4 and 5, respectively.

Italy once became the epicenter of the COVID-19 in 2020. The country tallied 4.6 million cases and more than 130,000 deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020. It is currently dealing with 113,000 actives cases.