Vaccinated People Don’t Get COVID: The Full Story

Well, they don’t get it half as much as the statistics say they do. So, how can people who don’t have the disease infect people?

To understand this, look at an everyday scenario. I’m lining up for a bus, and somebody with COVID, who hasn’t put on a mask yet, sneezes beside me. I’m double vaccinated, so I’m not too worried. But he has deposited a colony of viruses on my sleeve. It sits there, growing. I go to my son’s place, and my granddaughter gives me a big hug. She puts her nose against my sleeve and inhales. She’s too young to be inoculated, so I have infected her, but I don’t have the disease myself. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand this chain of events.

Now let’s apply this scenario to a medical situation.

The Science

Nobody thinks about this, but there are two places inside your body that you can carry the COVID virus. The first is in your bloodstream. If the virus is in your bloodstream, you’ve got the disease. You’re susceptible to the symptoms, and you’re actually producing the virus, and you’re contagious. That’s the simple part.

But if you’ve just been exposed to the disease, you don’t have it yet. The virus comes in through your mouth and nose and sets up camp in your mucus membranes, a warm, damp, place, and reproduces exponentially. The disease is not yet in your bloodstream. You don’t have the disease, but just as if you were carrying it on your sleeve, you’re still contagious. The viruses build up and keep attacking until finally, they break through, and then you’re toast.

The Testing Procedure

And where do they test you for the virus? In your mucous membranes. So even in the early stages, when the disease has not taken over, you still test positive. I’m going out on a limb here, to suggest that this explains many of the “asymptomatic” cases. You can test positive before the virus has broken through into your system, before you have any noticeable symptoms.

But What If You’re Vaccinated?

Here’s where the statistical breakdown happens. The vaccine is in your bloodstream. It sets up an antibody defence wherever your blood interchanges with the outside world, like your mucous membranes.

If you have been exposed, you still have the same buildup of viruses in your membranes. You don’t have the disease, and you’re probably not going to get it. Any virus that tries to slip through gets pounced on and killed by your antibodies. But you’re contagious. The nice thing about it is that in your nose, just like in any other environment, the viruses hang around for a few hours or days and then die. But for that time, you still carry the disease. When you cough, sneeze or talk, you still spray the viruses around. And you still test positive.

The Result?

So we have vaccinated people wandering around who have been exposed but are never going to get the disease and are never going to show any symptoms. But if they’re tested, they come out positive. Of course, if they’re tested two days later, they come out negative, because the virus has died off. It doesn’t mean the original test was wrong.

And when you consider that the main variation of the Delta variant is that it produces up to a thousand times the virus load in your mucus membranes that the old version did, you see how important this information is.

Two Effects of This Information.

1. If You’re Unvaccinated:

The first point is that people keep hearing, “You can have the shot but still get the disease,” and then they give a percentage. This data is skewed because the testing site is a spot where you carry the virus when you don’t have the disease. So in actuality, the vaccines are even more effective than the data shows.

2. If You’re Vaccinated:

The second point is more important. I have friends who say, “We’re all double vaccinated, here. We can act as if the epidemic is over.” Especially with the delta variant, you can be highly contagious without ever getting the disease. This is crucial information because it shows clearly why even vaccinated people need to keep wearing masks and social distancing in public, to protect the children and unvaccinatable we are exposed to.

The Bottom Line

The information in this blog, both scientific and speculative, doesn’t change anything: The best action a caring, responsible citizen can take, for both the individual and society, is to get vaccinated and then act like you aren’t.