CHICAGO (CBS) — Six million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given in Illinois, but a small group of people have still contracted COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. They are called breakthrough cases.
Illinois is reporting roughly 400 of the breakthrough cases, which is less than .02% of those fully vaccinated, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
CBS 2 has learned six Illinoisans have died from COVID-19 after getting the full vaccination. But for some perspective, 238 Illinoisans once died from COVID-19 in one day.
“We’ve had fewer than 100 cases, but we have had cases here in Chicago of people who have been fully vaccinated,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. “Nobody has needed to be hospitalized. Nobody has died.”
Arwady said most of those people were asymptomatic and got tracked because the city does “routine testing in high risk settings.”
The stats for Illinois, a much larger sample size, look a little different. From the very first Illinois COVID vaccination on Dec. 15 until March 31, the state says 2.2 million Illinoisans received their final shots. Of those, 399 still tested positive for the virus and of those, 17 were hospitalized from COVID-19. Six died.