Maine reports eight deaths in fully vaccinated people with COVID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 3,459 breakthrough cases of COVID resulting in hospitalization or death.
Eight people in Maine have died with COVID after being fully vaccinated, according to the latest numbers from Maine’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which confirmed a total of 457 breakthrough cases in the state.
Initial data suggest breakthrough cases in Maine are more common in older individuals and people with underlying health conditions — the same populations that, among the unvaccinated, are most at risk of hospitalization or death from the virus.
About half of the vaccinated people in Maine who tested positive for COVID had not experienced symptoms when contacted by case investigators, according to the Maine CDC.
In Maine and other states, anyone who tests positive for SARS-Cov-2 two weeks after receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot or completing the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccination is recorded as a breakthrough case.
The daughter of one Maine woman who died from the virus despite being vaccinated said she wishes there was more information available about breakthrough cases. If she had known more, she said, she would have taken more precautions despite her mother’s vaccination status and been more insistent that she seek testing and treatment when she first had symptoms.