Separating fact from fiction.

What You Need To Know

  • Vaccine eligibility has been talked about for months and now, more people than ever can get vaccinated
  • Yet, how effective are these COVID-19 vaccines and will we need to get vaccinated again in the future?
  • To get some clarity, Spectrum News spoke to some medical experts
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According to Forbes, 40% of US adults are now vaccinated against COVID-19.

But many of us still have a lot of questions, such as: can a fully vaccinated person become infected with COVID-19?

The answer is yes.

"The one big thing is, we want to keep people alive," said Dr. Anja Bottler, an infectious disease physician.

Dr. Bottler adds that research has found the vaccine is highly effective in preventing the severity of COVID-19.

"So instead of having to go to the hospital, you're able to tough it out at home or if you're in the hospital, not go to an ICU. So we see it's less severe,” she noted.

Then there's the issue with messaging.

Research from the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the Moderna vaccine protects people against COVID-19 for at least six months.

"In the people on whom the studies were done, out to three months and now out to six months, they are still showing high levels of protections," explained Dr. John Sellick, an epidemiologist for Kaleida Health.

For how long the vaccine could be effective, Dr. Sellick, who's also a professor of medicine at the University at Buffalo, says with this being a brand new vaccine, there's no definite answer right now.

"The companies have data collected for only six months right now and these researchers will continue to collect data," he added.

Unlike the mumps and measles vaccines, medical experts, like Dr. Bottler, believe with changing COVID strains, people will need to get another vaccine, like a booster shot, at some point.

"Moderna is already working on an updated vaccine... will it be a yearly thing like the flu shot... we can't predict that right now," explained Dr. Bottler.

With variants of the virus still developing, medical experts continue to push for everyone to get the vaccine.