LTC resident who recovered from covid, just got 1st vaccine, now just tested positive for covid and sent to the hospital.

Well, since nobody knows much of ANYTHING about the vaccine OR the virus, anybody's guess is as good as anybody else's. What we DO know is that the virus CAN be caught in between getting vaccine #1 and vaccine #2. But we also thought there were antibodies built up in a person's body who had already HAD the virus previously, and they were thought to be immune for 6 months.

So all bets are off, which is no real surprise. So many people feel that the vaccine is going to be 'the answer' to this virus. But sadly, it probably isn't.

With the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, it took 10 YEARS for the medical community to figure out what had happened and how things should have been handled.

Unfortunately I have read many similar stories, although the experts say reinfection is rare anecdotal reports seem to indicate otherwise.

I know that someone in our local caregivers support group, tested positive for Covid in May 2020, with symptoms, and then again in October 2020. So who knows? That was the first time I had heard of someone testing positive twice, but now your post, makes it the second time. Makes you wonder in your post, if the resident, actually had Covid the second time, before receiving the shot, or if in fact they got it from the shot. Things that make you hmmm.....

None of the vaccines use live virus so it is impossible to catch it that way funkygrandma. (this is also true for the flu shot, despite what people say)

Cwillie: it's pretty hard to find 'experts' on a brand new virus & a brand new vaccine. Even the ones we rely on change their minds like we change our underwear.

It’s not an anomaly Geaton. This scenario is playing out in other care facilities although there is a small difference—seniors in care facilities are contracting COVID after being vaccinated BUT unlike the resident in your MILS facility, they didn’t previously have COVID. So....it appears possible the vaccine isn’t that effective in the elderly. Multiple factories have reported COVID outbreaks after a majority of their residents were vaccinated.

My hubby got the pzifer vaccine on Monday. Don’t know when he gets the 2nd dose. So far no side effects!!!

Well, that is one for the record books. There are usually TWO tests done. One is a quick test done in ER before transfer. It is often having false positives and false negatives. They will retest at least several times, and as I said, if this is truly a case of someone who both HAD covid already in May, and has been vaccinated, she or he enters the record books as a very odd happenstance indeed.
Dependent on test USED this could also indicate antibodies to covid in the bloodstream, so again, a wait and see thing. Hope you'll update us and
I would stay tuned. I agree with Geaton that this is an anomaly if this is truly a patient who was recently vaccinated and who already had Covid itself. It would be rare and she would be entered into studies with calls placed to CDC.
I suspect subsequent tests will be negative.

You'll get no argument about that from me lealonnie, everybody is flying by the seat of their pants.

This is a short response to Geaton's post along with a very short vent.

The response: Is the residence change in condition attributed to COVID? The letter doesn't say. We know one can't get the virus from the vaccine. But you can get the virus between shots or even after the final injection. There's much speculation about how effective the first dose is, certainly no where near peak efficacy. Even after the second dose, full protection doesn't come until weeks later.

I was surprised to hear our friend Dr. Fauci, say that the vaccine doesn't prevent one from acquiring the virus, it merely prevents the disease from being “clinically recognizable”, i.e., it prevents symptoms. So in effect, it makes people asymptomatic. But does it prevent those who have been vaccinated from transmitting the disease? Don't know.

The vent: We're still in the very early stages of this pandemic and I'm tired of it. I know some elderly who haven't been out of their house since March, except for groceries. I wonder how many people have died of despair?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Capt. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise when he wanted to be transported back to the ship, “Beam me up Scotty!”. That's about where I am today, ready for transport!

I wonder whether the previous diagnosis was backed up by lab tests or assumed from symptoms? Or, yes, this unfortunate older person could be an anomaly. There are - how many - 7 billion? people on the planet, so even 0.1% of them is going to look like quite a big number.

Wishing the person a speedy recovery and many negative tests to come :)

No false positives with the lateral flow test, Alva, but a heck of a lot of false negatives - it was described the other day as a "ruling in, but not a ruling out, test."

I got my negative PCR result this morning from testing on Tuesday. Then three hours ago an email - on my DAY OFF which I really need! - instructing me to attend for a further swab tomorrow morning; you get the lateral flow result half an hour later, then the PCR result up to 72 hours afterwards. Then from next week I'll be swabbing myself every Thursday. Then one of the Shift Leaders called as I was sitting down to dinner to make sure I'd got the email. Our service managers are fit to be tied, because apparently "so many" people are testing positive. I'm beginning to understand how bowling pins must feel when they're standing there waiting in the alley!

I have been jabbed, I am being tested, I wash my hands, I wear my PPE and I follow procedure as far as is possible out in the community - as opposed to the fantasy Sim City the people who come up with it seem to inhabit. I can't speak for what anyone else is doing, but in any case there must be a sizeable element of blind luck to this, I think.

Attenuated means the virus is weakened, rendered ineffective, but not necessarily DEAD. This method is NOT being used to develop the vaccines.

/ MAYO CLINIC
The COVID-19 vaccines currently being developed in the U.S. don't use the live virus that causes COVID-19.

Following this thread for the good information from everyone!

I was just remembering something. When I was a small child, I had the measles vaccine & then came down with the measles afterward. It was pretty soon afterward, I think...........within 1 week. But it DID happen, and the pediatrician was flabbergasted b/c it had not happened before (to her knowledge, and it wasn't written up in the medical journals after she looked). The vaccine wasn't brand new at the time, either.

So............strange things DO happen!

And, here's a similar story I just read on the same subject as Geaton wrote about:

A San Diego, California ER nurse has tested positive for COVID-19, just eight days after receiving his first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine.

After taking the vaccine on December 18th, nurse Matthew W. felt fine. Six days later he came down with the chills, muscle aches and fatigue after working a shift in a COVID-19 unit.

Two days later and still under the weather, Matthew took a COVID-19 test that came back positive.

Dr. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist involved in the vaccine rollout at the county level, told ABC 10, “It’s not unexpected at all. If you work through the numbers, this is exactly what we’d expect to happen if someone is exposed.”

Dr. Ramers notes Matthew could have had the virus before he took the vaccination, and says he knows of several other local cases where healthcare workers became infected after taking the vaccine.

“That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95%,” Dr. Ramers said.

Dr. Ramers also reminded the ABC 10 audience that even after receiving the vaccination, masks, handwashing, and other COVID protocols will still be necessary.

So, if we can still get the virus after being vaccinated and still have to adhere to social distancing, mask laws, etc., then what’s the point of the vaccine in the first place?

There is no Covid virus in the vaccines, so if this person does indeed have it again, it's from another source, not the shot.

I think my 91-yr old mom has developed a variant form of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome, where she is faking ailments so that I will give her my attention and take her out of the house to doctor appointments because she is so bored of the lockdown. I swear she did this to me today at the dentist. Much ado about nothing.

UPDATE (1.29.21) from MIL's facility:

"We have had no new cases of COVID-19 at LMS since our last update. Our most recent case was a Gables resident who tested positive in the hospital on 1/21/21, but was someone who had previously tested positive. We worked closely with MDH Epidemiology, the hospital, and our physician contacts, and it was determined based upon further lab work that the positive result was likely not a “new” COVID-19 infection. Although this was a very unique situation, we do still need to count it as a positive case. Staff and residents have continued to test negative since that time."

So...this person is a "silent" carrier? Never recovered completely from the first bout? Not sure how to interpret this info.

It does take two weeks at the least to begin to get any immunity. If two shot vaccine the immunity is considered good as it will get after the second shot and two more weeks passing. As MJ explained, this isn't from the vaccine. The vaccine gives antibodies, not the illness or the virus. Have you any update for us? Do know also that we have false positives and false negatives to deal with as well. I know, it's a jungle out there!

My LO had Covid infections twice, and remained virus positive for several weeks after the first infection.

I think that since so many lives were lost early on, there are not a whole lot of guidelines for the very elderly who survived the first onslaught of the infections.

I experienced symptoms on 1/16, tested on 1/20, still coughing but lighter symptoms every day.

Locked in since 3/5/2020. Not the best year of my life.