According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of about the nearly 77 million people in America (23%) who’ve been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, several thousand have become infected anyway.
There are others who’ve become seriously ill -- 396 or about 7% of those who've had the vaccine required hospitalization, and 74 people have died -- even after receiving a full dose of the vaccine, as reported to CNN.
“Vaccine breakthrough infections were reported among all people of all ages eligible for vaccination. However, a little over 40% of the infections were in people 60 or more years of age,” the CDC said.
All of this new information is not a surprise. The vaccines are not 100% foolproof in preventing infections from the virus.
Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine is about 95% effective in preventing symptomatic disease in clinical trials, and earlier this month the companies reported that the vaccine is more than 91% effective against disease with any symptoms for six months.
Moderna’s vaccine was 94% effective in preventing symptomatic illness in trials, and 90% effective in real-life use. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was 66% overall globally in trials, and 72% effective at preventing disease in the US.
“CDC is monitoring reported cases for clustering by patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type or lot number, and SARS-CoV-2 lineage,” the CDC said.
Additionally, there will be continued research about the number of cases related to variants.
“CDC has developed a national COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough database where state health department investigators can currently enter, store, and manage data for cases in their jurisdiction,” the CDC said.
“We’re still learning how vaccines will affect the spread of COVID-19. After you’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you should keep taking precautions—like wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces—in public places until we know more.”