Minnesota over the past week identified another 6,012 breakthrough coronavirus infections in fully vaccinated individuals, but trend data continue to show that unvaccinated people were hardest hit by the latest COVID-19 wave.

More than 98% of fully vaccinated Minnesotans haven't suffered infections, which is significant considering that some breakthrough cases were inevitable and that a fast-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus has emerged, said Kris Ehresmann, state infectious disease director.

The state has reported 738,843 infections since the start of the pandemic nearly 20 months ago as well as 8,320 COVID-19 deaths.

Minnesota's weekly report on Mondays of breakthrough data showed a total of 38,808 infections in fully vaccinated people, including 1,934 people who were hospitalized and 234 who died of COVID-19.

The number of breakthrough COVID-19 deaths makes up only 0.007% of the state's fully vaccinated population of more than 3.2 million people, but is an increase of 49 from the total reported last Monday.