Why have you been hearing that’s it recommended you continue wearing your mask even after being vaccinated? This post goes over it!
In a nutshell, the clinical trials for Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech were designed to focus on disease inhibition and decreased disease severity. Participants were only tested if they were experiencing symptoms. Therefore, asymptotic cases were not tracked, making it very difficult to make claims about who did or did not transmit Covid. *Note that catching asymptotic carriers would have required weekly testing of 30k-40k participants. At a time when testing was (and still is in some places) limited.*
There is some promising data reported in the Moderna Phase 3 clinical trial supplementary files. Participants were tested just before the first dose and again just prior to coming in for the second dose. They kept track of asymptotic patients at this second marker. By the numbers, it seems that the vaccine does in fact, to some extent, also reduce asymptotic carrying of the virus! Which would definitely reduce transmission. The data is very early and it’s limited, but paired with the understanding of how specific immunity works, it is likely that vaccination will reduce transmission.
BUT, as scientists do, we don’t make claims until we feel a degree of certainty that matches the level of consequence if the claim was incorrect. And that just hasn’t happened yet. You can expect data on this in the near future.
As such, the recommendation is to use your best judgment and act with caution.
Posted on Instagram on January 19, 2021.