Fauci: There's evidence COVID-19 vaccines don't just protect you - they may stop you from spreading the virus to others, too

Fauci

: There's evidence COVID-19 vaccines don't just protect you — they may stop you from spreading the virus to others, too

Early data suggests people who get vaccinated have a lower risk of passing COVID-19 along to others, even if they get sick.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says there's new evidence that aCOVID-19 vaccinemay not just protect the people who get it but also shield others whom they come in contact with."There have been some studies that are pointing into a very favorable direction," Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday during a White House COVID-19 briefing.

While he said more conclusive research was still needed, the doctor pointed to two studies out this month.Taken together, they are some of the earliest evidence we have that even if vaccinated people do get sick with COVID-19 - in what's called a "breakthrough" infection - the chances that they will then transmit their illness to others are far lower than if they had remained unvaccinated.

The No. 1 "looming question," Fauci said, is: "Does vaccine prevent transmission?"These two studies are early signs pointing toward a "yes."Not everyone who gets COVID-19 passes it on, whether they are vaccinated or notA health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine on January 23. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images headtopics.com

The first piece of evidence, a peer-reviewed study published inThe Lancetearlier this month, suggests that people who are infected with COVID-19 but have lower viral loads in the back of their nose and throat are much less likely to infect others.In the study, conducted in Spain during March and April, scientists measured how much virus 314 coronavirus patients had during their infections by swabbing way up inside their noses (nasopharynx) and measuring their viral loads.

Then they looked at which of those patients transmitted the coronavirus to someone else.Story continuesThey found that the higher a patient's viral load was, the more likely they were to pass their illness on to someone they came in contact with. And the higher the spreader's viral load was, the faster the person they infected tended to get sick.

"In other words, higher viral load, good transmissibility, low viral load, very poor transmissibility," Fauci said.Until now, it wasn't known whether viral load affected infectiousness, so there was some concern that even people with low levels of virus could spread their illnesses around well.

But it's important to note that this study was performed nearly a year ago, when there wasn't as much concern about, so it's tough to interpret what it means for viral load and infectiousness now.Vaccinated people seem to have less virus to spread around, even if they do get sick headtopics.com

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars After ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ Please Stop Asking FKA Twigs—And All Domestic-Abuse Survivors—‘Why Did You Stay?’ NASA's Perseverance rover makes safe landing on Mars Dr. Anthony Fauci receives his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine on December 22. Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty ImagesThe, which came out last week and has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggested that people who were vaccinated in Israel had "significantly reduced" viral loads if they got sick, starting at least 12 days after full vaccination.

Taken together, these two studies suggest that:Vaccinated people tend to have lower viral loads.Lower viral loads are linked to less viral spread.It's possible, then, that vaccinating large numbers of people could help to crush the coronavirus outbreak, by not only

keeping vaccinated people healthy, alive, and out of the hospitalbut also preventing any of those vaccinated people who might get sick (even asymptomatically) from passing their sickness along to others."It is another example of the scientific data starting to point to the fact that vaccine is important, not only for the health of the individual, to protect them against infection and disease," Fauci said, "but it also has very important implications from a public-health standpoint for interfering and diminishing the dynamics of the outbreak."

More studies on viral loads in vaccinated people will need to be completed, and validated, from independent scientists in other countries around the world to see if this trend holds true globally. (Both Moderna and Pfizer already have such studies in the works, Fauci said.) headtopics.com