The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the agency has documented about 5,800 “breakthrough” COVID-19 cases among the millions of Americans who are fully vaccinated, far less than 1 percent of all fully vaccinated people.
“Breakthrough vaccine infections make up a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated,” the CDC told The Hill in a statement. “CDC recommends that all eligible people receive a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as one is available to them.”
The CDC told The Hill on Thursday that about 7 percent of breakthrough cases recorded resulted in hospitalization and about 1 percent of people who contracted breakthrough infections died.
The breakthrough COVID-19 infections reported to the CDC originated from more than 75 million fully vaccinated individuals in the US, and occurred in less than 0.008 percent of fully vaccinated people. Hospitalizations occurred in 0.0005 percent of all complete vaccinations and deaths in nearly 0.0001 percent.
Health officials, including the best infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci Governor of Iowa Praises Receiving Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Amid Hiatus: ‘I’d Do It Again’ Jill Biden to Appear in ‘Sesame Street’ documentary Despite July 4 timeline, US far from herd immunity MORE, have pointed out that COVID-19 vaccines will not be 100 percent effective, meaning that some who are vaccinated will still become infected.
“To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in the demographics or vaccine characteristics,” the CDC said.
The health service called on all eligible people to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible and fully vaccinated individuals to observe coronavirus precautions, such as wearing a mask and social aloofness, to avoid contract the disease.
The CDC said COVID-19 breakthrough cases were reported among “all people of all ages who were eligible for vaccination.”
Most breakthrough infections occurred in women and just over 40 percent occurred in people over 60. Nearly 30 percent of breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated people were asymptomatic, the CDC reported.
“CDC checks reported cases for clustering based on patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type or lot number, and SARS-CoV-2 lineage,” the agency said.
The federal agency has also developed a database for state health officials to enter and organize data on these breakthrough cases. “When available,” said the CDC, samples will be collected for genomic sequencing to find out if certain variants caused the infection.
The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine reported that it was 95 percent effective against symptomatic cases in studies and a total of 91 percent effective against all symptoms, and the Moderna vaccine documented an effectiveness of 94 percent against symptomatic cases in studies and 90 percent effectiveness overall six months after the second dose.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine registered 66 percent effectiveness in studies worldwide and 72 percent effectiveness against moderate and severe COVID-19 cases in the US.