Mayo Clinic Study – Vaccines Greatly Reduce Risk of COVID Spread
Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A new Mayo Clinic study has found the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines effective at reducing the risk of unknowingly spreading the virus.
According to the Mayo Clinic news release, the research found that 10 days after receiving a second dose of the messenger RNA vaccines, patients without COVID symptoms are far less likely to test positive and infect others. The study found there was an 80 percent lower adjusted risk of testing positive for COVID-19 following the administration of the second dose of the vaccine.
"We found that those patients without symptoms receiving at least one dose of the first authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech, 10 days or more prior to screening were 72% less likely to test positive," says Aaron Tande, M.D., a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases specialist and co-first author of the paper. "Those receiving two doses were 73% less likely, compared to the unvaccinated group."
The news release says the 80 percent risk reduction represents adjustments made for a range of factors.
The findings are based on a study of 39,000 patients who were screened for COVID-19 prior to undergoing medical procedures. The study involved over 48,000 screening tests that included 3000 tests on patients who had received at least one dose of either of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines between mid-December of last year and February 8 at Mayo Clinic facilities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The results of the study have been published in the journal Clinical Infections Disease.
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