LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A VERIFY viewer asked: Is it true that 4,115 fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized or died with breakthrough COVID-19 infections?
We went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Arkansas Department of Health to answer this question.
First – let’s define a breakthrough infection.
According to the CDC, a vaccine breakthrough infection is the detection of COVID-19 in a person 14 days or more after they have completed all recommended doses of their COVID-19 vaccine.
As of April 30th of this year, a total of 10,262 COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections had been reported from 46 U.S. states and territories.
4,427 patients with the infection were hospitalized and 879 of them died. Totaling 4,686 patients with a COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection who were hospitalized or died.
As of July 7, Arkansas has reported a total of 1,902 breakthrough cases, 68 hospitalizations of breakthrough cases, and 7 confirmed deaths of breakthrough cases.
The CDC said vaccine breakthrough cases will happen, even though the vaccines are working as expected. But the CDC confirms it is leading multiple vaccine effectiveness studies to make sure COVID-19 vaccines are working as expected.
Officials are also working with state and local health departments to investigate COVID-19 infections among people who received the vaccine and identify patterns or trends.
So we can verify, yes, it is true more than 4,600 fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized or died from breakthrough COVID-19 infections.
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