Komarovsky told if a person is contagious after being vaccinated against coronavirus

The COVID-19 vaccination campaign is gaining momentum. Frightened by the prospect of quarantine, people go to get vaccinated en masse. Most of them after vaccination experience rather unpleasant symptoms - chills, aches throughout the body, headache and fever up to 39 degrees. At this moment it comes to mind that the body has not passed the test and has become infected with covid. And if he got infected, then he became infectious to others. Is this so? Pediatrician Yevhen Komarovsky told in the program "Ranks with Ukraine".

COVID-19 vaccinations do not contain live virus

People go to get vaccinated against covid for a variety of reasons. Someone is afraid of getting sick, someone wants get a vaccination passport - a kind of indulgence during quarantine. And someone is worried about their family members, who may have

contraindications to vaccination. Such people are ready to be vaccinated so as not to infect close relatives. Therefore, they most often mistake the body's response to the vaccine for symptoms of incipient covid. And they panic, considering themselves a carrier of the disease.

Yevgeny Komarovsky says that a person after vaccination may well be contagious. However, only if he was injected with a "live" vaccine that contains a real, albeit weakened, virus. Such vaccinations, for example, include the polio vaccine - after it, a person can actually release the virus into the environment for up to 5 days. There are even known cases of vaccinated children on the playground infecting children unvaccinated from polio.

In the case of coronavirus, none of the vaccines approved for use in Ukraine contains a live virus. Vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna are based on mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid). It contains an "image" of the spike protein that causes the coronavirus, and "instructions" on what to do to immune cells to neutralize it. The body reads and memorizes this information, and when it encounters a covid, it develops the desired immune response.

The AstraZeneca vaccine contains a "vector" virus (in this case, a monkey adenovirus, which is safe for humans), which also encodes a SARS-CoV-2 "image". "Vector" delivers this information to the body, and the body independently develops a protective reaction. The most "dangerous" of all vaccines, CoronaVac, contains inactivated (that is, non-viable) particles of the coronavirus that cannot cause disease, but cause an immune response.

Symptoms after vaccination do not mean illness

Fever, body aches and pains, chills and muscle weakness are considered typical human responses to the COVID-19 vaccine. This means that the body has recognized the "message" and triggered the development of an immune response. As a rule, these symptoms last no more than 1-2 days after vaccination, they are well removed with paracetamol, ibuprofen or nimesulide. A person at this time is not contagious to others, because he was not exposed to a live virus.

Nevertheless, against the background of the weakening of the body in the post-vaccination period, a person is more likely than usual to catch an infection. And it can be either sore throat or flu, or the same coronavirus. While the immune system has not yet developed a normal amount of immunoglobulins (and this usually happens after the second vaccination), he may well "pick up" SARS-CoV-2, and then start infecting others.

In addition, scientists have already proven that even a full course of vaccination does not protect a person from the possibility of contracting covid later. True, the disease will be mild or asymptomatic. And this is the main danger for contact persons, because in this case, "dad with snot" may well become a carrier of coronavirus in the house. Therefore, Evgeny Komarovsky recommends that all family members be vaccinated whenever possible, because individual protection works much better than hopes for herd immunity. And if there is no opportunity for vaccination, teach your vaccinated relatives, even after the second dose of the vaccine, to observe the mask regimen and social distance.

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