Reports scattered across the country can play a cruel irony: someone tests positive for coronavirus even though they have already received one or two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Notable examples
It has recently happened with at least three members of Congress:
– Adriano Espaillat, DN.Y.
– Stephen Lynch, D-Mass.
– Lori Trahan, D-Mass.
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But people from other walks of life have also been reported, including Rick Pitino, a Hall of Fame basketball coach and nurse in California.
How can this happen?
Experts say cases like this are not surprising and do not indicate any problems with vaccines or how they are administered. Here’s why.
– Vaccines do not work instantly. It takes the body a few weeks to boost immunity after receiving a dose. And the vaccines now used in the United States, by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, require a second shot a few weeks after the first to achieve maximum effectiveness.
– Nor do they work retroactively. You can already be infected and not know when to get the vaccine, even if it has recently been negative. This infection may continue to develop after you get the shot, but before its protection is fully utilized and appears in a positive test result.
– Vaccines prevent disease, but perhaps not infection. Vaccinated vaccines are being authorized based on how they prevent you from getting sick, needing hospitalization, and dying. Scientists still don’t know the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent the coronavirus from infecting you to begin with or to prevent you from transmitting it to others. (This is why vaccinated people should continue to wear masks and maintain social distance).
– Even the best vaccines are not perfect. The efficacy rates of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are extremely high, but not 100%. Because the virus was still spreading out of control in the United States, some of the millions of people recently vaccinated were forced to become infected anyway.