US nurse tests positive for COVID week after receiving Pfizer vaccine, company clarifies

A medical professional in the United States, who recently got inoculated by Pfizer vaccine, has tested positive for COVID-19, according to ABC News San Diego affiliate KGTV. 45-year-old Matthew W., who works as a nurse in San Diego tested positive for COVID-19 days after getting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. According to the report, Matthew received the jab of the vaccine on December 18 and six days later after working his shift at a COVID-19 ward, he started to feel uneasy. A COVID-19 test later confirmed he was positive for the disease. 

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'Not surprising' 

Dr. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist at the Family Health Centers in San Diego, told KGTV that from the trial results of the vaccine that it is known that patients do not develop protection immediately. Ramers said that it takes 10 to 14 days to develop protection against the disease, so the nurse testing positive for COVID-19 six days after receiving the vaccine shot is not surprising at all. 

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The United States rolled out the COVID-19 vaccine on December 14 after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Pfizer-BioNTech on December 11. The US FDA approved the second vaccine on December 18, granting approval to Moderna. Health care professionals across the country have been prioritised to receive the vaccine in the first phase of the campaign under Operation Warp Speed. 

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The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine contains messenger RNA (mRNA), which is a new unproven method as opposed to the traditional inactivated virus method used by some of the other vaccine manufacturers. The trial results suggest that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 90 percent effective, which is a higher efficacy rate given that US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had said any vaccine with more than 50 percent effectiveness will be considered safe for use. 

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