Can you get COVID-19 even after vaccination? Govt clarifies

As India reels under the second wave of COVID-19 and the variants reaching several states, there have been reports of reinfection. Some people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in India were diagnosed with COVID-19 later.

Can you get COVID-19 even after vaccination?

The Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Government of India took to Twitter on Saturday to clear the air about this question. According to the government, yes, people can get infected with COVID-19 even after they are vaccinated. However, a very small percentage of people are contracting COVID-19 after getting vaccinated. Even after they test positive for COVID-19, they experience mild symptoms, the government said.

“Vaccination is crucial to prevent COVID-19. Only 0.03%-0.04% of the people have contracted COVID-19 after vaccination and even they have had mild symptoms,” the PIB said.

“Vaccine will not allow the virus to further replicate and it will not allow the disease to become more severe,” the government added.

“But during that time, your RT-PCR test can be positive and you maybe infectious to others so it’s important to follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour even after vaccination,” it further said.

What does WHO say about it?

In a feature on the side effects of COVID-19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) wrote: “There have been concerns about COVID-19 vaccines making people sick with COVID-19. But none of the approved vaccines contain the live virus that causes COVID-19, which means that COVID-19 vaccines cannot make you sick with COVID-19.”

“After vaccination, it usually takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. So it’s possible a person could be infected with SARS-CoV-2 just before or after vaccination and still get sick with COVID-19. This is because the vaccine has not yet had enough time to provide protection,” the WHO said.