COVID UNCERTAINTY

     Since last March 2020, we have been indebted with information on COVID 19  and we still are learning. Last year when I was checking out there were atleast 15 different medications that were tried or given or had some 'promise' and as off today we have very few. Most of the medicines have been proved to be not very successful. But at many places people are still being treated with some of these medicines. Vitamin C and vitamin D are some of them. So some one asked me a question ,Can a fully vaccinated person transmit the virus? And I came across the answer  and may be a proof of the information. 

    I saw this male patient . I had seen him 3 years ago and he was a smoker and had COPD - smoking related lung disease. He had work up and when I did CT scan I found out that he had a kidney mass . I did further work up and send him to  urologist. He had surgery and it was kidney cancer. He did OK and came to see me once and then did not do follow up.After 3 years he came to me as he had abnormal CT scan of the chest. He had COVId infection  in a month  and then he was fine  and on march 1st he had his first shot of the vaccine. He had no major problem but he had chest x- ray as he has had some cough later on . The chest X- ray showed some abnormality and so he had CT scan of the chest . The CT scan showed  a mass or pneumonia. There were 2 spots and so he was sent to me . He has been smoker and had COPD. We decided to do the work up . He had CT scan and at the same time he had second test done for COVID 19.  and that was positive. He had no problems and he wanted to go back to work.So he did another COVID test  and that was negative. This was done in 6 or 7 days after the positive test . He also had his second dose of vaccine  and did very well and had no reaction to it . So this tells me that one could get infection even after having vccine . But patient may have no symptoms  and the course seems to be limited as he was negative in less than 7 days . 

   Then I came across the data from CDC  and also some srtcle from British Medical Journal.They had 5800 cases among 77 millions vaccinated  and some were admitted  and some died.But  that should not surprise anyone . The vaccine is not 100% successful like any other vaccine . I also saw another study  on antibody titre in patients who had solid organ transplants and who were on immunosupressants. Only 17 % patients had antibody titer. So I am sure when antibody titers will be done in patients who had vaccine and got infected, we may get the answer . May be the antibody titers may not be high or adequate in atleast the patients who needed to be hospitalised . But we don't know that yet..