DETROIT – As millions of people become fully vaccinated we are starting to hear cases where some still get COVID-19 afterward.
Here is what it really means about the vaccines.
Some people might feel discouraged from getting vaccinated after hearing these stories.
It is really important that everyone understand these vaccines are highly effective, but they do not guarantee 100 percent protection. That is the case for all vaccines.
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Due to this fact there will be a small percentage of people who still get COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated, but that doesn’t mean the vaccine didn’t help them.
Ariel Silver is a busy mom and sales manager for a medical device company.
She jumped at the chance to get vaccinated.
“From what I read it was like a 95 percent efficacy. So I thought I was good,” said Silver.
She received her second Pfizer shot in mid-January and continued to follow the recommended precautions.
“Definitely wearing masks, I was social distancing. I was still being really careful,” she added.
But when her two daughters came down with COVID-19 in late February soon after she got sick too.
“Having been full vaccinated for six weeks and then to get a positive COVID test, I was shocked. I’ve read that if someone gets vaccinated with COVID it’s usual very mild symptoms. But for two days my symptoms were not mild at all. I was in bed, very ill,” she said.
It’s not unexpected. In the Pfizer trial, eight people in the vaccinated group got a symptomatic case of COVID-19, but that’s compared to 162 in the placebo group.
For Moderna, 11 vaccinated people still caught COVID-19 versus 185 in the placebo group.
And for Johnson and Johnson, 32 in the vaccinated group got sick compared to 112 who did not receive the vaccine.
“We shouldn’t be surprised about some people still getting infected, especially if they have high risk exposures, like a household exposure. However, what we shouldn’t expect are severe infections because we know the vaccines are highly protective against hospitalizations,” one physician told Local 4 News.
Silver is back to feeling good and still encourages others to get vaccinated.
“The data shows the vaccines are safe and really do help protect against COVID-19. I could only imagine not having the vaccine and getting COVID and how much worse it would be. I do feel like it protected me against hospitalization and God forbid death,” she said.
Ultimately, all three vaccines are highly effective at preventing people from getting severely ill, needing to be hospitalized, or dying.
That doesn’t mean no one ever gets sick, but it does mean the vaccines are doing what we need them to do.