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Guidance on what people can do safely after getting a COVID-19 vaccine
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About a year into the global pandemic, as the worldwide death toll exceeds a dizzying 2.3 million—nearly half a million in the United States alone—hope has arrived in the form of multiple vaccines created in record time that have shown impressive success in preventing COVID-19.
“What all the vaccines have been is very highly protective against severe disease, hospitalization, and death,” says William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That, he says, is the most important success story of COVID-19 vaccines and will help bring this brutal pandemic under control.
With the number of vaccinated individuals growing daily, many wonder: What previously risky activities, such as meeting up indoors with friends or going out shopping without a mask on, are now safer with a vaccine? This is what the experts say about how to calculate the risks of some common activities after you’ve been vaccinated.
How long after being vaccinated does 'full' immunity kick in?
The two mRNA vaccines that are currently approved for use in the U.S., Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, involve two doses spaced three or four weeks apart. It takes one to two weeks after the second shot to achieve the maximum level of protection from COVID-19. In clinical trials, these vaccines are each about 95 percent effective in preventing cases of COVID-19.
At this point, it is unknown how long immunity will last after a person is fully vaccinated, and only time will reveal the answer. The COVID-19 vaccine could become a yearly shot, similar to the flu shot; its benefits could last for a shorter time, or longer.
Can vaccinated people have no symptoms and still spread the virus to the unvaccinated?
This question is critical, but has not been rigorously studied yet. The data available so far indicate that vaccination significantly curbs infection in people who show no symptoms. In Moderna’s phase 3 clinical trial, a diagnostic test before the second dose of the vaccine showed 89.6 percent of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases were prevented by the first dose.
Preliminary results from phase 3 trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed a 67 percent reduction in positive swab tests after one vaccination.
That result is “really encouraging,” says John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at University of California Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “That's going to make me feel, as a responsible person, that I can more safely be around other people.”
How safe is it for vaccinated people to get together?
The decision for vaccinated people to gather involves mental “calculus,” says Swartzberg, which should take into account how likely anyone is to be exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, vaccinated or not, because there is still a small chance even a vaccinated person could become infected.
As time goes on, when more people are vaccinated and the number of infected individuals continues to drop, Moss says a gathering among vaccinated people “will be a safe one” and continue to get safer.
“To be on the safe side,” says Cynthia Leifer, associate professor of immunology at Cornell University, “we should still practice distancing measures as much as we can in the shorter term until we get broader distribution of the vaccine.” She recommends people continue to follow the guidelines of avoiding large groups, wearing masks and staying at least six feet apart. ...
ALSO SEE: Majority of Americans could be vaccinated by the middle or end of summer, says Fauci
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