Of the 417 Rockefeller University employees who were completely vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna photos, two or about 0.5 percent had infections discovered later, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We have characterized good faith examples of the discovery of the vaccine that manifests as clinical symptoms,” the researchers wrote in their study. “These comments in no way undermine the importance of urgent efforts at the federal and state levels to vaccinate the US population. It also supports efforts to advance a new vaccination booster (as well as a pan-coronavirus vaccine) to ensure increased protection against variants. “
Researchers at Rockefeller University found that coronavirus variants with more differences from the original virus caused revolutionary infections.
One variant that infected one of the patients had the E484K mutation, which was first found in variant B.1.351 initially identified in South Africa. E484K has been called an “escape mutant” because it has shown that it could get rid of some of the antibodies produced by coronavirus vaccines. One of the mutations found in both infections of the study participants included D614G, which appeared at the beginning of the pandemic.
One of the infections discovered was in a healthy 51-year-old woman who received the second dose of Moderna vaccine on February 19. Ninety days later, it gave positive results for Covid-19 on March 10, after the onset of symptoms.
The other major infection was in a healthy 65-year-old woman who received her second dose of Pfizer on February 9. She later learned that her partner, who was not vaccinated, tested positive for Covid-19 on March 3. In the following days, the woman developed her own symptoms. She tested positive for Covid-19 on March 17.
More research is needed to determine whether similar findings related to infections or discovered variants would occur among a larger group of participants from different parts of the United States.
Experts say that some cases of Covid-19 are expected in people who have been completely vaccinated because no vaccine is 100% effective.
The CDC said cases of discovery occurred in people of all ages who were vaccinated, but just over 40% were in people 60 and older. They were also more common in women and 29% were asymptomatic.
The agency said it had developed a national database of Covid-19 findings so that state health departments could report them.
“Infections detected by vaccines represent a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated. The CDC recommends that all eligible people receive a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is available to them,” the CDC said in a statement to CNN.
Ben Tinker and Maggie Fox of CNN contributed to this report.