US: 5,800 infected with coronavirus despite vaccination

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - A total of 5,800 people in the US have been infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.

Almost 400 cases required hospitalization and 74 died, the CDC told the USA Today newspaper. More than 40% of infections were in people 60 and older, while 29% were asymptomatic, it added.

"All of the available vaccines have been proven effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths," said CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund. "However, like is seen with other vaccines, we expect thousands of vaccine breakthrough cases will occur even though the vaccine is working as expected."

While two-shot vaccines of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are more than 90% effective, Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine is around 70%.

More than 255 million doses have been distributed in the US, while 198 million have been administered as of early Thursday. So far, 78.5 million people, or 23.6% of the population, have received two doses, according to the CDC.

Almost 31.5 million cases have been recorded in the US since the start of the pandemic with more than 564,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Global cases are more than 138 million with more than 2.9 million killed by the virus.