Here’s Why You Should, Wear a Mask, After Getting Vaccinated.
As COVID-19 vaccines roll out across the world, many people
are wondering what that means for current mask-wearing protocols.
Although vaccines are proven to prevent serious illness,
it’s unclear whether they completely curb COVID-19 infection.
It’s possible that some vaccinated people
could still be silent spreaders of the virus.
When it comes to respiratory infections
such as COVID-19, the nose is a main point
of entry into the human body.
Viruses rapidly multiply in the nose and
prompt the immune system to produce
antibodies specific to mucosa.
Mucosa is a type of moist tissue that is unique to
your nose, mouth, lungs and stomach. .
If exposed to the virus a second time, those
antibodies are able to shut it down in the nose before
it has the chance to travel deeper into the body. .
This is why mucosal vaccines, such as FluMist, are
more effective at fending off respiratory viruses. .
The current COVID-19 vaccines are not
mucosal. They are injected deep into a person’s
muscles to stimulate an immune response.
This protects the vaccine recipient from getting ill,
but the virus could still bloom in the nose and be
sneezed or breathed out onto others. .
Preventing severe disease is easiest,
preventing mild disease is harder, and
preventing all infections is the hardest …
If it’s 95 percent effective at preventing
symptomatic disease, it’s going to be
something less than that in preventing
all infections, for sure, University of Arizona Immunologist
Deepta Bhattacharya, via ‘The New York Times’.
Moderna and Pfizer are currently examining
past participants in order to determine whether they became
infected with COVID-19 after receiving the vaccine.