US Congressman Stephen Lynch tested positive for COVID-19 – after receiving his second dose of a vaccine.
Lynch received a positive test result after a team member in her Boston office tested positive earlier in the week, spokeswoman Molly Rose Tarpey said.
The congressman had received his second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and the test was negative before attending President Biden’s inauguration last week. Lynch is now quarantined.
“This afternoon, the US representative, Stephen F. Lynch, received a positive test result for COVID-19 after a staff member at the congressman’s office in Boston tested positive earlier in the week. Congressman Lynch received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and subsequently received a negative COVID-19 test before participating in President Biden’s inauguration, ”said Tarpey in a statement released on Friday afternoon.
“As long as Mr. Lynch remains asymptomatic and feeling well, he will be quarantined and will vote by proxy in Congress for the next week,” she continued.
Lynch is the second member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to test positive for coronavirus in a few days.
US Congresswoman Lori Trahan tested positive on Thursday and is also in quarantine.
“Thanks to everyone who contacted me to check on my family and me the day before,” she tweeted in an update on Friday. “I am isolating myself from my husband and girls who are negative and quarantined as well.”
Upon receiving a positive test result after his second dose of a vaccine, Lynch points to the unknowns that still surround the much sought after vaccines, said Boston University infectious disease specialist Dr. Davidson Hamer.
“Neither the Pfizer nor Moderna vaccine is 100% protective based on the studies that have been done. Both are about 95% effective against symptomatic infections, ”said Hamer.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should be about 95% effective against symptomatic infection seven or more days after the second dose is administered, according to its clinical trial.
But science still doesn’t know how well the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines prevent asymptomatic infections – and how well they prevent transmission, Hamer said.
“Is it a vaccine failure or does the vaccine not prevent asymptomatic infection?” Hamer, who did not address or speak directly to Lynch, reflected. “He is protected against symptomatic infections, which would be great for him, because it can decrease the risk of hospitalizations?”
The exact timing of when Lynch received the vaccine doses was unclear. The congressman visited the Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center last Friday, when nearly 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were lost after a contractor accidentally released the freezer plug during cleaning. Lynch did not return a call from a Herald reporter on Friday afternoon.