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<\/a>A nurse filling a syringe with a COVID-19 vaccine. A CDC study of an outbreak in a Texas prison in July suggested that vaccines protected against severe illness. Photo by Sergio Flores\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
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- About 70% of fully vaccinated people in a Texas prison caught COVID-19 in an outbreak, the CDC said.<\/li>\n
- The data suggests that while Delta can spread among vaccinated people, vaccines protect against severe COVID-19.<\/li>\n
- Of the unvaccinated prisoners, 93% caught COVID-19, and one died, the CDC said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
More than two-thirds of fully vaccinated people in a Texas prison caught COVID-19 during an outbreak of the Delta variant in July, but vaccines protected against severe illness, a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Of 185 fully vaccinated prisoners at the unnamed prison, 129, or about 70%, caught the virus, data compiled by the CDC and the Federal Bureau of Prisons showed. This was a much lower rate than the unvaccinated prisoners, 39 of 42 of whom \u2013 or about 93% \u2014 caught COVID-19 during the outbreak, said the study, published Tuesday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Four people, three of whom were unvaccinated, needed treatment in a hospital, the study said. One unvaccinated person died, it said.<\/p>\n
Most of the prisoners were white men, and many had received Pfizer’s vaccine at least four months before the outbreak, the data showed.<\/p>\n
The study adds to growing evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cut the risk of severe disease and hospitalization. Prisons tend to have higher rates of COVID-19 and deaths because of cramped living conditions and underlying health conditions, the CDC said.<\/p>\n
Another CDC study<\/a> from this month found that unvaccinated Americans were 11 times as likely to die of COVID-19 as vaccinated people. About 45% of people in the US are unvaccinated, according to the CDC<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The latest CDC study showed that the Delta variant can spread among both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. “Infectious virus was cultured from vaccinated and unvaccinated infected persons,” the study said.<\/p>\n
Measures like masks and regular testing are “critical” where physical distancing is “challenging,” even if vaccination rates are high, the CDC said.<\/p>\n