Bosses at the New York Yankees are working with US health officials and Major League Baseball after eight players tested positive for Covid-19 despite being vaccinated – including one player who had previously caught the virus.
Shortstop Gleyber Torres and seven members of staff and coaches were infected even though they had received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has been found to be 72 percent effective against Covid-19 among US trial participants and 85% effective against severe Covid-19, at least two weeks ago.
Two-time All-Star Torres also tested positive during the off-season in December, with the Venezuelan testing negative since.
"My understanding is that he's asymptomatic and doing fine," said Yankees Manager Aaron Boone, whose players have been operating under relaxed health and safety protocols after reaching the MLB-recommended 85 percent threshold of vaccinated team members late last month.
"It was certainly unexpected: Major League Baseball and everyone who's in charge of testing is obviously looking into that and the variants that are out there.
"We're trying, as best we can, to keep our guys safe. Right now, we're dealing with a ton of moving parts and things continuing to unfold.
"I understand the move towards normalcy – I've started down that road a little bit as well.
"We've been rocked here over the last several days. We've been concerned every day."
Thousands of fans have returned to MLB stadiums in the US since the beginning of April, with attendances limited to around 30 percent of capacity by the majority of teams.
None of the infected individuals could have caught the virus from the vaccine, which does not contain coronavirus.
"The Yankees have been in touch with the New York State Department, clearly trying to be as transparent with information and data-sharing as we can be," said General Manager Brian Cashman.
"There are a lot of different spokes to this wheel, whether it's coming through Major League Baseball and their doctors or New York Presbyterian Hospital and our doctors, Montefiore, as well, who were on the ground and were tremendous with providing access to vaccines.
"This clearly is something worth focusing on, learning from, educating people with – and we'll try to share as much as we can."
Seven of the eight individuals have shown no symptoms, which some health leaders have said is indicative of their conclusions that vaccinated people will have far less severe symptoms should they be reinfected.
A fraction of the total number of people who have been vaccinated in the US, thought to have reached more than 117 million, are known to have been reinfected.
The Yankees lost 9-1 at the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday and are scheduled to visit Baltimore for their series against the Orioles on Friday.
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