During the month of July, 469 coronavirus infections were detected in Barnstable County, a peninsula of the state of Massachusetts that includes the tourist area of Cape Cod. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English), these cases were linked to summer celebrations in which a large number of people gathered.
The vaccination rate in that state is close to 70%, so you might think that these mass events were safe.
In fact, the CDC itself had recommended that immunized people could stop wearing the mask.
However, an analysis of what happened in Barnstable showed that 74% of infections affected fully vaccinated people.
In most cases, it was due to the delta variant, which is as contagious as chickenpox or Ebola, and can cause more dangerous situations than other mutations, the CDC indicated Wednesday.
In the Barnstable outbreak, eight out of 10 infected showed symptoms of the disease, although only five (out of a total of 346 infected vaccinated, that is, 1%) had to be hospitalized.
None died.
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This CDC study is part of the reasons why federal authorities this week modified their recommendation to again ask vaccinated people to wear the mask indoors when they are in regions with a high rate of coronavirus infections (now same, in most of the country).
New cases of COVID-19 have increased by 109% in the last week due to the delta variant
July 15, 202101: 24
What happened in Massachusetts is no exception: last June, 20% of new infections in Los Angeles County, California, affected vaccinated people.
Only 8% had to be hospitalized.
A month later, in July, that percentage of infections among those vaccinated rose to 26%, according to the Los Angeles Times.
This does not change in any case that vaccination is the best way to avoid contagion (in the case of Los Angeles, for example, there are three times more infected without vaccinating than vaccinated), since it has been shown to be effective even against the variant delta.
But the fundamental thing is that, in the case of getting sick, the vaccine prevents the most serious symptoms and, in most cases, hospitalization or death.
[The end of the moratorium on evictions could aggravate the pandemic and would harm millions of Latinos]
Detroit nurse Hollie Macias talks to 19-year-old Shanya Taylor before receiving her coronavirus vaccine at a mobile vaccination clinic at East English Village High School in Detroit, Michigan, July 21, 2021.Emily Elconin / Reuters
At the national level, 46 states and territories reported 10,262 infections in those vaccinated between January 1 and April 30, 2021, 27% of them asymptomatic, compared to 11.8 million cases in the same period, according to Quartz. .
For reasons that are not clear, data from the CDC nationwide found that women account for 63% of infections in vaccinated.
Some smaller studies also identify women as the majority of these cases.
At the end of July 2021, 49% of the population, or just over 163 million people, were fully vaccinated.
Almost 90% of those over 65 in the country have received at least one dose of a vaccine.
