Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) Tested positive for the COVID-19, but remains asymptomatic after receiving the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, his office said Friday.
Why it matters: Lynch’s case emphasizes the importance of maintaining social distance and wearing a face mask, even after vaccination.
What they say: Lynch received a positive test result Friday “after an employee from Congressman’s Boston office tested positive earlier this week,” Lynch’s spokesman, Molly Rose Tarpey, said in a statement, per the Boston Globe.
- Congressman Lynch had received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and then passed a negative COVID-19 test before attending President Biden’s inauguration, she added.
- Lynch “remains asymptomatic and feels fine,” but will continue to “quarantine herself and vote by proxy in Congress in the coming weeks.”
- It’s unclear when Lynch received each dose of the vaccine.
- Lynch’s office did not immediately respond to Axios’s request for comment.
The big picture: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the companies that developed the two vaccines approved in the US, say their vaccines are about 95% effective at preventing people from getting sick after receiving the second dose of their respective vaccines.
- “It usually takes a few weeks for the body to build up immunity (protection from the virus that causes COVID-19) after vaccination,” notes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- “That means it is possible for someone to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and still become ill. This is because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection,” adds the CDC to.
- It’s also not yet clear how effective the vaccine is against infection and transmission, but researchers say it should prevent people from getting sick.
Go deeper: We are selling the coronavirus vaccine too short