“Advanced” COVID-19 infections after vaccination are being taken “seriously,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday as federal officials expressed concern over rising coronavirus cases in the U.S.
“As for the advanced cases of people who have been vaccinated and who have finally had infection, it is clear that this is something we take seriously and follow closely,” the nation’s leading infectious disease expert said during the virtual coronavirus meeting at the White House.
Fauci explained that some advanced infections in fully vaccinated individuals with any vaccination effort are not entirely uncommon.
“You’ll see advanced infections in any vaccination when you vaccinate literally tens and tens and tens of millions of people, so in some ways it’s not surprising,” Fauci said.
Fauci said “one of the important things that will be done and should be done is to sequence the virus genome which is the advanced virus” to find out if the infection comes from the original strain of the virus or from one of the VOCIDs. -. 19 variants.
“It would be very important to see if they broke the wild-type virus, which would indicate a real decrease in immunity or if it broke with any of the variants, which would be much more explicable if you don’t have enough cross-reactivity,” he said. to say.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, added: “Thus, all this information will be collected and will be very informative about the type and frequency of progress we will see.”
Fauci’s comments come after Minnesota reported this week of 89 advanced infections among people who have been completely vaccinated against coronavirus.
None of them were among Minnesota’s 6,798 fatalities, including the nine deaths reported Wednesday, and doctors noted that even those who were hospitalized after being vaccinated had milder illnesses, he said. inform Star Tribune.
Idaho health officials also said this week that there have been fewer than 100 cases of advanced COVID-19, according to KTVB.
Meanwhile, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said during the briefing that the U.S. averaged approximately 57,000 COVID-19 cases a day and that the average seven-day case has been increased by 7 percent.
The most recent seven-day average of U.S. coronavirus hospitalizations was 4,700, a “slight increase” from the previous seven-day period, Walensky said.
In addition, the COVID-19-related death rate in the country continues to “hover” at about 1,000 per day, Walensky said.
“I am deeply concerned about this trajectory,” he said. “We’ve seen cases and hospital admissions go from historic falls to stagnation to increases.”
“We know from previous surges that if we don’t control things now, there’s a real potential for the epidemic curve to skyrocket again,” Walensky said, urging Americans to “take this moment very seriously.” .
Over the past two weeks, the United States has “constantly” inoculated about 2.5 million Americans a day and the country is on track to meet President Biden’s new vaccination target of 200 million shots administered in his first 100 days in office, White House coronavirus response. Coordinator Jeff Zients said.
“With 200 million shots in the first hundred days, more than half of all adult Americans will have received at least one shot on April 29,” Zients said.
“No one even set out to achieve that goal a few months ago,” he said. “But now it’s possible because of the aggressive action we’ve taken.”
As of Friday, 71% of people age 65 and older have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to Zients.
“This is important because older people sadly account for 80 percent of deaths from COVID,” he said.
Overall, Zients said, more than one in three adults has received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Since inoculation efforts began in mid-December, more than 47.4 million Americans, or 14.3% of the population, have been completely vaccinated.
“Clearly there is a case for optimism, but there is no case for relaxation,” Zeints said. “This is not the time to lower your guard.”