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Nearly 10,000 fully vaccinated Massachusetts residents have now tested positive for COVID-19 and just over 100 of them have died, according to state data on groundbreaking cases released Tuesday.
The Department of Public Health has tracked a cumulative 9,969 confirmed COVID-19 infections among fully vaccinated people in the state to date and a total of 106 deaths. Both figures remain a tiny percentage – around 0.23% – of the more than 4.3 million people who have been vaccinated.
Over the past week, 2,232 groundbreaking new cases – infections in people who have been vaccinated – have been reported.
Since the first residents were fully vaccinated in January, DPH has counted 445 vaccinated residents hospitalized with cases of COVID-19. That number includes the 50 groundbreaking new hospitalizations, as well as six additional deaths, which were reported Tuesday among those fully vaccinated in the past week.
Tuesday’s report pushed the state’s cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 682,240 since the start of the pandemic and its death toll to 17,743.
The overall number of cases has been on the rise in Massachusetts and across the country for weeks as the highly infectious delta variant spreads, including among those who are fully vaccinated, but health experts have repeatedly pointed out that vaccinations reduce the risk of serious injury or death in the rare breakthrough cases.
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Massachusetts’ COVID readings, tracked on the Department of Public Health’s interactive coronavirus dashboard, are well below what they were several months ago, although some have increased in recent weeks. While groundbreaking cases are reported, officials say most new cases, and particularly serious infections, go unvaccinated.
Tufts Medical Center epidemiologist Dr Shira Doron has put the rare deaths among those fully vaccinated in context.
“These 100 patients died over the course of several months,” Doron said.
Doron noted that some of the vaccine patients reported as COVID hospitalizations and COVID deaths are actually due to other underlying issues, where COVID is identified during routine admission screening.
“In these cases, the positive test may be old, a false positive, an asymptomatic positive, a mild infection, or an infection that contributes to the illness or death of a person with another primary illness but not the only cause. “said Doron.
Doron said that while the groundbreaking cases are cause for concern, they are not as much of a concern as the need for vaccination around the world.
“Most of the data, with a few notable exceptions, suggests that efficacy against the Delta variant is maintained, with only a negligible decrease compared to Alpha,” she said of the vaccines.
“We have to put some of these numbers in a more realistic context just so that people – you know, so people don’t panic, so people make the right decisions based on the real risk,” Doron said.
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