July 28, 2021- 11:43 p.m.
New Orleans, Louisiana, 33-year-old woman who was fully vaccinated against COVID-19 has died from the virus in a rare “breakthrough” case.
She had been convinced that she didn’t have COVID-19, according to her mother, because she had been fully vaccinated and wasn’t experiencing some of the key symptoms of the virus, such as loss of taste and smell.
She passed away on Sunday after falling ill on Thursday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that fully vaccinated people are “much less likely” to be infected with COVID-19, but that a “small percentage of people” will still contract the virus.
“She said ‘I know I do not have COVID. I still can smell and taste. And I am vaccinated.’ But when she got to the hospital, it turns out she had it.
It calls these rare incidents “vaccine breakthrough cases.”
As of July 19, 2021, more than 161 million people in the U.S. had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and the CDC had received reports of 5,914 vaccine breakthrough cases.
