She was shot by luck.
A Brooklyn woman who managed to avoid catching COVID-19 throughout 2020 fell with the bug this month – three weeks after she was vaccinated.
Ashley Allen, 31, spoke to The Post by phone while in quarantine at her Williamsburg apartment and between calls from city contact locators.
Contact tracers “started asking me questions about what I was doing three weeks ago,” Allen said. “And I said I was getting vaccinated.”
Allen was thrilled to be able to book a meeting for the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine at the Javits Center on March 10.
The convention’s extensive space just received new vaccine shipments and hit New York 24 hours a day – Allen’s appointment was at 2 p.m. As a distributor of wines and spirits, he managed to get a coveted place early even while vaccines remained unavailable to most New Yorkers. Although he had a brief fever the next day, his side effects from the jab resolved quickly.
Even after Allen was vaccinated, he always made sure to disguise himself when he was out and wash his hands frequently.
“On Wednesday, March 31, I started to feel like a scratch, a tickle in my throat. It was very dry, “she recalled. “Then I continued to have this dry cough. I thought I had allergies. ”
As the cough persisted, debilitating fatigue set in.
“It started to get really bad, to the point where I went to City MD,” she said. “I thought I had Lyme disease. I spend a lot of time in the north of the state. ”
But a rapid coronavirus test on April 4, plus a second rapid test on April 5, COVID showed. A PCR test, which is more accurate, confirmed it.
City MD staff “asked when did you get your vaccine? And I said March 10 and she was shocked, “Allen said.
Allen’s case is rare, experts say, but unheard of.
“The vaccine does not necessarily prevent you from getting COVID. It prevents you from being hospitalized or dying because of it, “Dr. Kris Bungay, a Manhattan doctor who received primary care, told The Post. “That’s why we all need to be careful.”
“It has not been common in clinical trials for patients to be symptomatic after vaccination.” Bungay added.
Moderna and Pfizer two-dose vaccines are 94% and 95% effective in preventing new coronavirus infections, respectively, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And while it’s more convenient, the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine offers only 66% protection.
Sporadic cases of post-vaccine horror stories have surfaced in local news across the country, but it remains unclear how many people went down with COVID after receiving the shots, known as the “vaccine discovery.”
“Although there are anecdotal reports of New Yorkers who tested positive for COVID 14 or more days after receiving the last dose of vaccine, the DOH is still investigating these cases to determine if they meet the CDC’s formal definition of vaccine discovery,” said Jill. Montag, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, told The Post.
As Allen recovers, she is unable to identify where she was exposed. “No clue,” she said. “If I should have made a wild assumption and still not sure, I think Target. At the Atlantic Terminal, in the elevator. ”