By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – As the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out continues worldwide to prevent the virus from spreading, a Bloomington Doctor says there is still a slim chance a person can get COVID-19 despite being vaccinated.
Statistically speaking, people have around a 5% chance of getting COVID-19 after being vaccinated, according to OSF General Surgeon Dr. John Wieland.
“Based on the statistics that have been published so far, you have about a 5% chance or risk of contracting the virus despite your immunity from the vaccine. So when they say ‘the vaccine is 94 or 95% effective,’ that means that of all the people that were vaccinated, 94 or 95% of them developed an adequate enough immune antibody response to be protected from viral infection. So, there is a chance that you can contract the disease.”
While various COVID-19 vaccine brands are administered and more on the way, Wieland told WJBC’s Scott Miller, the variety is a good thing.
“As somebody that has been in healthcare for 30-plus years, I think it’s good. Now you do get some; there are some caveats with that. The vaccines are somewhat different but very similar. One of the vaccine makers, I think it’s Johnson and Johnson, that people have to Google it to confirm that, has a different, more traditional vaccine technology.
“But this new messenger RNA technology which Pfizer and Moderna, the two vaccines that have been approved so far in the US use, that’s some really groundbreaking game-changing type of technology that has really been, that’s why they were able to ramp up the production of the vaccine so quickly and get it out.”
According to Bloomberg, more than 26 million doses in 43 countries have been administered.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
