A fully vaccinated Southwest Airlines flight attendant from New York died after contracting COVID-19.
Maurice “Reggie” Shepperson, 36-year-old who was based in Las Vegas, tested positive for the virus in early July, and succumbed to the disease Tuesday after being treated in a hospital for a month, a co-worker and friend told USA Today.
He was on a ventilator before he died, according to his mother.
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It wasn’t immediately clear when he was inoculated against COVID-19. Vaccines take three weeks after the second shot to reach their full effectiveness.
It also wasn’t clear whether the flight attendant had any pre-existing conditions.
A spokesman for Southwest Airlines confirmed to USA Today that a Las Vegas-based crew member died Tuesday.
Severe infections of COVID-19 among those who are vaccinated are extremely rare, even as the highly contagious Delta variant has spread across the United States.
The latest figures posted on the CDC’s website showed that just 8,054 — or 0.005 per cent — of the 166 million Americans who’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had suffered serious breakthrough infections causing hospitalization or death as of Aug. 9.
The vast majority of those who did become severely sick (74 per cent) were age 65 or older, the data shows.