universal masking or else this thing is going to spread like wild fire. so we now know the reasons for why the cdc is saying, put masks back on. within the past hour, the cdc released new findings on a big covid outbreak among vaccinated and unvaccinated people in provincetown, massachusetts, sparked by july 4th gatherings. so cnn s polo sandoval is in provincetown for us. tell us what you re seeing in the town and how they re reacting. reporter: alisyn, that s key now because now what we know based on this new data release is that the outbreak that was certainly seen here and still to a certain degree, to a lesser degree, being felt here, was part of that evidence that was considered by the cdc when it told the rest of the country that it would be wise to put those masks back on, regardless of vaccination status and that s what we re seeing largely here, folks inside adhering to this new mask mandate that requires people wear those masks while in indoor public spaces here in provi
that they ve been vaccinated and they re doing their part. provincetown is one of the highest vaccinated populations in the country, and i know the doctor before said it was surprising to see the outbreak here in provincetown, amongst the sort of highly vaccinated population. i would say it s not so surprising when you see an influx of tens of thousands of visitors from all around the world just highlighting the importance of vaccinations worldwide. definitely in the country. but if you re planning to travel and you re not vaccinated, please, please don t come to provincetown. we really take our health seriously, and for our local businesses to survive, we need to stay operational. and to stay operational, we need to stay healthy. that s really important message, ken. so, what s the mood like in provincetown right now? i mean, i know it s always so celebratory, but right now, are people approaching with caution?
look at how quickly it spreads. you can see the models on your screen. this is compared to the original strain. and then there s that cluster in provincetown, massachusetts. 469 residents there got infected with covid in a july 4th outbreak. and of those, 74%, meaning 346 people, had been vaccinated. most of them did show covid symptoms, although no one died and only four people had to be hospitalized. well, so, what does this say about vaccines? the vaccines still are very effective against severe disease, hospitalization, and death, according to the cdc. and that s critical. as covid cases are surging again across the country, largely fueled, of course, by this delta variant, all of that red you re seeing, those are the viral hot spots right now. so while vaccinations are inching up, infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising, too.
considered as it revisited that mask guidance and found that 469 massachusetts residents were infected during this fourth of july outbreak. that s generally in barnstable county, and that includes here in provincetown, 74% of those, and this is what is concerning, were fully vaccinated.79% of th symptomatic but this is also a very telling number, which is zero. that is, so far, according to local officials, nobody has actually died because of that infection, and researchers here, they found here essentially that it s still important to obviously get vaccinated here. we should also mention that since that sampling was taken and considered by the cdc, this particular cluster in this part of massachusetts continue to grow and at one point even made it up to close to 900 infections over the last several weeks. now, some good news and what was described as a silver lining by the local town manager here in provincetown is that the infection rate, which is obviously a very telling number, wen
fully vaccinated people might spread the delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people is, according to the washington post, based on a covid-19 cluster that emerged from july 4th weekend festivities in province town, massachusetts. the paper writes, quote, a person working in partnership with the cdc on investigations of the delta variant who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, said the data came from a july 4th outbreak in province town. genetic analysis of the outbreak showed that people who were vaccinated were transmitting the virus to other vaccinated people. the person said the data was deeply disconcerting and the canary in the coal mine for scientists who had seen the data. joining us now, province town town manager alice morris, town manager of this case. thank you so much for joining us, alex. what s it like to see this report coming out of the washington post and elsewhere that the cdc was looking at province town and saying, h