Robin Hauser, a pediatrician in Tampa, Florida, received COVID in February. What sets her apart from the vast majority of the tens of millions of other Americans who have come down with the virus is this: she became ill seven weeks after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“I was shocked,” Hauser said. “I thought, ‘What the hell? How did this happen? Now I tell everyone, including my colleagues, not to let go of the vaccine. ”
As more Americans are inoculated each day, a small but growing number face the disturbing experience of getting COVID, despite having had one shot or even two.
In data released Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that at least 5,800 people became ill or tested positive for coronavirus two weeks or more after completing both doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. .
A total of about 78 million Americans are now fully vaccinated.
These so-called discovered infections have occurred among people of all ages. Just over 40% were in people aged 60 or older, and 65% in women. Twenty-nine percent of those infected reported no symptoms, but 7 percent were hospitalized and just over 1 percent, 74 people, died, according to the CDC.
Public health officials said they were expecting revolutionary infections because manufacturers have warned out loud and often that vaccines are not 100% protective. The Pfizer and Moderna versions have consistently proven to be over 90% efficient, most recently for at least six months. Studies have also shown that they are almost 100% effective in ensuring that a small proportion of vaccinated patients who contract the virus do not receive severe cases or require hospitalization.
However, people are usually shocked and puzzled when they become the rare victim of discovery. After months of fear and taking precautions to avoid contracting COVID, they felt safe once they received the fire.
Hauser, 52, had stayed home from work to care for her children, ages 21 to 16, both of whom contracted the virus. She was confident she was protected. She also took care of her father, who had cancer.
“It’s a minor miracle that I didn’t infect him before I realized I was sick, too,” Hauser said. According to the unconscious behavior of the virus, Hauser’s husband, Brian, who had not yet been vaccinated, never became infected.
Masha Gessen, a writer for The New Yorker, completed the two-photo trial in mid-February. One month later, Gessen became ill and tested positive after both Gessen’s son and his partner, Julia Loktev, suffered COVID seizures. The experience was “unsettling, even a little traumatic,” Gessen said. Loktev’s disease appeared six days after the first dose.
“The psychological effect of the virus after a year of being very, very careful and vaccinated came to me,” Gessen, 54, said in an interview with KHN. “It took me about three weeks to get back to normal.” Gessen wrote about this month’s experience in The New Yorker.
Dr. Kami Kim, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said doctors are just as upset when these cases occur.
“All this, although anticipated, is certainly confusing and frustrating for people, both for doctors and patients. We all learn on the move and make judgments about what is best for our patients – and for ourselves, ”said Kim.
Vaccine manufacturers said the number of cases discovered by the CDC was not surprising.
Moderna’s latest analysis of vaccine clinical trial data shows that 900 people received COVID after being vaccinated, consistent with 90% or more of the vaccine’s effectiveness, said company spokeswoman Colleen Hussey.
Pfizer spokeswoman Jerica Pitts said the company would monitor study participants for two years after the second dose to learn more about the protection of the Pfizer vaccine against COVID.
In their reporting, the CDC defines a case of discovery as a disease or a positive test two weeks or more after complete vaccination. But tens of thousands of people who had a first shot or are short of two weeks after the second shot get infected as well.
Pfizer and Moderna report data showing up to 80% protection against infection about two weeks after the first blow. But most experts believe that protection varies widely, from 50% to 80%, depending on the length of time after the shot and the individual variation that exists with any vaccine.
The second blow increases immunity further, but not for a few days, at least, and then develops in two weeks. And again, these could vary from person to person.
Leslie Fratkin, 60, a freelance photographer in New York, received her second dose of Pfizer on March 12. She was surprised when clear symptoms of COVID appeared on March 24 and was quite ill at home for three days.
“You can’t print the words I said at that moment,” she said.
The CDC recommends that people receiving COVID after a first injection receive the second dose shortly after recovery, without specifying a minimum waiting time. This is a change from the prevailing advice in December and January, when some state health departments advised people to wait 90 days after a COVID crisis to get a first or second shot, and especially a second shot.
The reason for this important change is growing evidence from studies and experience that vaccine immunity to infection is stronger and possibly more “stable” over time than COVID infection immunity.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, said more research and better public health guidance are urgently needed. For example, is a second dose necessary even for people receiving COVID after the first dose, or does the infection itself serve enough to boost the immune system? And if a second shot is recommended, what is the optimal waiting period before getting it?
“These are important practical questions that need to be prioritized,” Osterholm said. “We’re kind of flying now.”
Other countries have treated the second dose differently.
In the UK, health authorities have been delayed by up to 12 weeks to expand the supply of vaccines and give priority to at least one blow to the arms of several people. In Canada, a government vaccine advisory committee recommended on April 7 that the second dose be delayed by up to four months.
At two news meetings this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and COVID advisor to President Joe Biden, said the number of discovery cases in the U.S. so far is not a cause for alarm and that the administration will continue to monitor these cases closely.
An important line of investigation is how important are the role variants or mutant versions of the initial coronavirus in these discovery cases. Research suggests that current vaccines may be somewhat less effective against new variants.
Martha Sharan, a CDC spokeswoman, said the agency is now urging states to use genetic sequencing to test virus specimens from patients with discovery cases to identify variants. In Washington, for example, eight variants were detected in the genetic sequencing of nine reported eruptions by April 3.
Today, the Biden administration announced $ 1.7 billion in spending from the COVID aid project to help the CDC, states and other jurisdictions more effectively detect and track variants by scaling up genomic sequencing efforts.
The CDC has also launched a national database on the discovery of the COVID vaccine in which state health departments can store and manage data.
“We’re lagging behind in sequencing evidence,” Osterholm said. “This will give us valuable information.”
JoNel Aleccia, senior KHN correspondent, contributed to this story.
Steven Findlay, a reporter who contributes to KHN, came down with COVID 30 days after the first dose and 24 hours after the second dose.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.