Fully vaccinated man dies of Covid in West Virginia
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says that ‘breakthrough cases are expected’
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Your support makes all the difference.A man who was fully vaccinated against coronavirus has passed away in West Virginia, health department officials have said.
The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department said the “breakthrough infection” led to the death of a 76-year-old man with an underlying health condition.
WSAZ reported that the man died of complications of the virus and passed away at a medical facility.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a breakthrough infection as the detection of Covid-19 in person at least two weeks after they are fully vaccinated.
The director of the health department, Dr Sherri Young, said that the death was the first as a result of a breakthrough infection in the county.
WOWK reported that there have been 31 vaccine breakthrough deaths in West Virginia since the vaccine rollout programme began, which translates to 1.3 per cent of coronavirus deaths in the state.
A number of so-called breakthrough cases have been occurring across the country driven in large part by the spread of the more transmissible delta variant.
The CDC says that “vaccine breakthrough cases are expected” and that “Covid-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control.”
However, the agency stipulated that “no vaccines are 100 per cent effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people.”
Their website says: “There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from Covid-19.”
Dr Young advised that people should continue to get vaccinated, saying the death should not undermine faith in Covid-19 shots.
The news comes amid a worrying rise in coronavirus cases across the country, with President Joe Biden having conceded this week that the Delta variant was “causing a new wave of cases”.
“This is a very different variant than what we’ve dealt with previously,” Mr Biden said in public remarks on Tuesday.
The more transmissible variant now accounts for over 80 per cent of all Covid-19 cases in the country. Mr Biden emphasised that the vaccine was the best tool in the fight against the virus.
“I want to be crystal clear about what’s happening in the country today: We have a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said.
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