A California-based nurse has tested positive for COVID-19 barely eight days after receiving the pfizer vaccination. – By Gerald Gekara.
Emergency Response nurse Matthew W., said he received the Pfizer vaccine on December 18, only to start developing COVID-19 like symptoms on Christmas day.
‘Got my Covid vaccine! The 15 minutes afterward sitting around with a bunch of others while health care workers asked us how we felt made me think of an opium den. I’ll report back if I start to grow a third arm,’ Matthew wrote in an Instagram post.
On December 26, he was tested for the virus and the results came in positive.
Experts on the Pfizer vaccine said that the best immunity against coronavirus comes seven days after the second dose, which is given three weeks after the first, meaning there is a possibility that someone who had received the vaccine could still contract the virus within that time frame.
‘That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95%,’ Dr Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San Diego said.
All patients need two doses of the vaccine to achieve immunity.
Matthew says he is feeling better since his symptoms appeared last week.
The Trump administration is aiming to vaccinate the majority of the US population in the first half of next year. Despite this, slow rollout of the program may take nearly 10 years to complete, according to a new report.
Trump’s Operation Warp Speed officials had promised over the last several months that 20 million Americans would receive the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020 and 80 per cent of the total population would be vaccinated by late June.
However, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows vaccination efforts are moving at a slower pace than needed, with just 2.1 million Americans receiving their first dose out of the 11.4 million shipped earlier this month, as of Monday.
