As many as 246 Michigan residents who were “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19 later tested positive for the deadly bug – including three who have died, according to a new report.
The group – whose cases were reported between Jan. 1 and March 31 – tested positive at least two weeks after receiving the last dose of the vaccination, a health official told Detroit News.
“Some of these individuals may eventually be excluded from this list because they continue to test positive for a recent infection before they are fully vaccinated,” said Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Health and Human Services, in an email Monday. .
“These cases are under further investigation to determine whether they meet other CDC criteria for determining breakthrough potential, including the absence of a positive antigen or PCR test less than 45 days prior to the positive test after vaccination,” Sutfin said. .
“Overall, these individuals were more likely to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic compared to vaccinated individuals,” she said, adding that hospitalization data was available for 117% of the cases, while 129 was incomplete.
“Of the 117 with entered hospital admission data, 11 were hospitalized, 103 were not hospitalized and three were reported as unknown,” Sutfin said.
The three people who died were all 65 or older and two “were within three weeks of completing the vaccination,” she said.
“While the majority of the population develops full immunity within 14 days of completing their vaccine series, a small proportion appears to take longer to build up a full antibody response. CDC is actively working to better understand the risk characteristics of this group, ”she added.
The newly released data emerged as COVID-19 cases in Michigan, which are leading the nation in new cases in terms of population, continue to rise and officials try to encourage jabs.
According to Detroit News, the state surpassed 700,000 cases on Monday.
Last week, Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she increased the state’s goal from 50,000 injections a day to 100,000 a day.