People Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19 Can Still Contract Virus, Study Shows
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Sandra Stadler is one of thousands of Los Angeles County residents who will get a COVID-19 vaccine this week.
"I'm really very, very relieved of course," she said.
And that shot means she may soon start relaxing her rules for seeing people she does not live with.
"Like now, I ask anybody who comes over to wear a mask at all times, and I wouldn't do that anymore," she said.
But according to a team of investigators from UC San Diego and UCLA, people can still become infected with coronavirus even after being fully vaccinated — though they said the risk was small.
"What we found was there was that there were very few infections after two weeks after the second vaccine was given," Dr. Francesca Torriani, an infectious disease specialist, said.
The study — which monitored healthcare workers at UCSD and UCLA's David Gaffen School of Medicine — found that out of nearly 15,000 healthcare workers who received both doses, only seven tested positive for COVID-19 after two weeks or more.
And while the study proved that the vaccines do work at preventing people from becoming infected with COVID-19, the so-called breakthrough cases are a reminder that the threat of the virus is not over just yet.
"Most of these healthcare workers acquired the infection in the household, as the majority of us," Torriani said.
Torriana said that with more variants popping up across the country, those who are vaccinated should not let their guard down until more of the population is able to get vaccinated.
"It's not the time to unmask and not be careful about not infecting others, because we do not have sufficient numbers of the population vaccinated," she said.
The study also found that out of the healthcare workers who did test positive, only a few showed symptoms, further proving that the vaccines are doing what they set out to do — protect people from serious illness.
