- Experts say it shouldn’t be surprising that Olympic athletes and other vaccinated people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.
- They say the vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective against the virus, so there can be a small number of vaccinated people who will test positive.
- They add that the vaccine doesn’t necessarily protect against infection. It protects against serious illness and hospitalization from COVID-19.
Some of the world’s healthiest bodies have traveled to Japan for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in hopes of glory and gold medals.
COVID-19 had other ideas.
Dozens of vaccinated Olympic athletes have seen their dreams crash with the novel coronavirus at the wheel.
They’ve tested positive for the virus and have been ruled out of competition while seemingly remaining healthy.
Doctors, however, aren’t surprised by the positive test results. They say vaccines don’t always keep a person from testing positive, but in almost all cases, they do prevent someone from becoming sick, or at least as ill as they would have without the vaccine.
Dr. Jason Gallagher, a clinical professor at Temple University’s School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia and a clinical pharmacy specialist in infectious diseases, told Healthline there are two reasons we still see COVID-19 cases in vaccinated people.
“The first is the more obvious one. If a vaccine works for 90 to 95 percent of the people, that means it doesn’t work for 5 to 10 percent of them,” he said. “That level of effectiveness will squelch out a spreading virus if enough people are vaccinated, but unfortunately, we aren’t near that level right now.”
Gallagher said the second reason is more complicated.
“Vaccines are more effective at blocking disease than they are at blocking infection,” he said. “Infection can be mild or asymptomatic, and people may not even know that they have it. But if you’re looking, you’ll find it in infected people. The Olympic team(s) are testing to look for infections so people can be isolated and prevent spread, which can find infections that people would never know they had.”
“Vaccines mostly protect people from developing disease, not infection,” Gallagher said.
Source: healthline