Nurse tests positive for Covid-19 eight days after getting first vaccine dose

A nurse tested positive for Covid-19 days after receiving the first of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, according to reports.

ER medic Matthew began to feel unwell with chills, muscles aches and fatigue on Christmas Eve - six days after receiving the jab.

On Boxing Day, the 45-year-old took a test at a drive-up site where he was found to have contracted the virus.

Pfizer Inc has moved to reiterate a person will not be substantially protected from becoming infected until they have had their second dosage.

Nevertheless, the drug maker has said it will "review all available information" in this particular case, as well as "any confirmed diagnosis following vaccination".

It also pointed out that Matthew, from San Diego, California, and who works at two hospitals, could have already had the bug when he was inoculated.

The nurse posted on Facebook on December 18 that he had received his jab before telling his local ABC News affiliate, while his arm was sore he had suffered no other side-effects.

Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San Diego, said that this scenario was not unexpected.

"We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it's going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine," Dr Ramers said.
"That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95%."

He went on to say, he knows of other local cases where health care workers became infected around the time they received the vaccine, showing the results are not immediate.

In a statement, Pfizer said: "Based on our Phase 3 safety and efficacy study, the vaccine provides some protection against COVID-19 within about 10 days of the first dose and substantially boosted after the second dose, supporting the need for a 2-dose vaccination series.

"Individuals may have contracted disease prior to or right after vaccination," the statement added.

Source: Mirror