People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are not carriers of the virus and don’t have symptoms from the disease, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“And that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data,” she said.
The CDC study observed 3,950 health care workers, first responders and other essential workers who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines from December through March and found it to be 90% effective at preventing them from being infected with the virus two weeks after the second shot was administered.
The study found that the first shot was 80% effective two weeks after being given.
And of those who were infected, “Most of the positive tests occurred in people who had no symptoms at the time they were tested, and did not even know they were infected,” Time magazine reported.
The study did not look at variants of the virus, so health officials are advising vaccinated people to continue wearing masks as a precaution.
President Joe Biden has urged states to reintroduce mask mandates and other preventive measures amid the CDC’s growing fears of another wave of coronavirus infections.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has called such moves “theater,” and argued that anyone who is fully vaccinated need not wear a mask.
“You want people to get the vaccine, give them a reward instead of telling them the nanny-state’s going to be there for three more years, and you gotta wear a mask forever,” he argued this month at a Senate hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci.
But the study authors said people can still be infected and get sick from variants after they have received their vaccinations, just not as seriously, and that’s why the still recommend wearing masks.
“The protection against infection wasn’t perfect — 80% to 90%,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, professor of medicine at Emory University, told Time. “Can I increase that to closer to 100% by wearing a mask? Yes.”
The United States had administered 147,602,345 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 189,451,285 doses, according to the CDC.
The tally is for Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines as of 6 a.m. ET on Tuesday, the agency said.
According to the tally posted on March 29, the agency had administered 145,812,835 doses of the vaccines, and distributed 180,646,565 doses.
The agency said 96,044,046 people had received at least one dose while 53,423,486 people are fully vaccinated as of Tuesday.
A total of 7,719,964 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: Newmax
