The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the COVID B117 variant – also known as the U.K. variant - is now the predominant strain in Michigan and across the United States. How effective are vaccines against it and can someone who has been inoculated still get infected?
You’ve been fully vaccinated. Still, the question lingers; can someone who is fully vaccinated become infected with COVID-19?
“The answer is yes.”
Dr. Darryl Elmouchi is President Spectrum Health West Michigan.
“To date now, we’ve had 16 patients admitted to our hospitals who’ve been fully vaccinated who tested positive for COVID-19," said Elmouchi. "To be clear though, of those 16, seven had symptomatic COVID-19. Meaning came in with symptoms related to COVID-19. The other nine were incidentally discovered because we do a lot of screening testing. So, these could have been patients that came in with a broken leg, with appendicitis or some other reason and weren’t actually suffering from COVID-19 symptoms. And this should tell us that these vaccines, first of all, compared to the number of patients that we’ve admitted overall with COVID-19, are incredibly effective and, if someone were to have COVID the likelihood of having severe disease, as was shown in those clinical trials, remains incredibly low.”
Dr. Elmouchi explains all three vaccines; Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are effective against the U.K. strain. And he says, “This is all the more reason why we should all get vaccinated.”