7.4 percent of the positive COVID-19 cases Greene County health officials tracked in May reported being vaccinated against the disease for at least two weeks at the time they became ill.
The data comes from patient interviews during the contact-tracing process overseen by the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.
In the month of May, 26 out of 351 individuals with COVID-19 told health officials they had been fully vaccinated, according to health department spokesman Aaron Schekorra.
Schekorra said this is to be expected since vaccinations are not 100 percent effective. He said the difference is in how severe the cases are.
“We have seen that individuals who do contract COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated often have a less severe illness. So, we’re not seeing that same severity as we would among someone who was not fully vaccinated,” Schekorra said.
Schekorra said it’s unclear how the numbers of local breakthrough COVID cases compare to the state percentage, since that data is still being gathered. He said more severe cases found in fully vaccinated people tend to be in individuals who were previously immunocompromised.