Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar 10;41(11):1769-1773.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.11.030. Epub 2022 Nov 18.

SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons: A case series

David W McCormick  1 , Liesl M Hagan  2 , Phillip P Salvatore  3 , Reed Magleby  4 , Christine Lee  5 , Sadia Sleweon  2 , Lavinia Nicolae  2 , Tom Dixon  6 , Robert Banta  6 , Isaac Ogle  7 , Cristen Young  6 , Charles Dusseau  6 , Charles Ogden  7 , Hannah Browne  2 , John Michael Metz  2 , Min-Hsin Chen  2 , Maria I Solano  2 , Shannon Rogers  2 , Alex Burgin  2 , Mili Sheth  2 , Bettina Bankamp  2 , Azaibi Tamin  2 , Jennifer L Harcourt  2 , Jacqueline E Tate  8 , Hannah L Kirking  8 ; COVID-19 Surge Diagnostics Laboratory Teams
Affiliations

SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons: A case series

David W McCormick et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

The preclinical time course of SARS-CoV-2 shedding is not well-described. Understanding this time course will help to inform risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. During an outbreak in a congregate setting, we collected paired mid-turbinate nasal swabs for antigen testing and reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) every other day from all consenting infected and exposed persons. Among 12 persons tested prospectively before and during SARS-CoV-2 infection, ten of 12 participants (83%) had completed a primary COVID-19 vaccination series prior to the outbreak. We recovered SARS-CoV-2 in viral culture from 9/12 (75%) of participants. All three persons from whom we did not recover SARS-CoV-2 in viral culture had completed their primary vaccination series. We recovered SARS-CoV-2 from viral culture in 6/9 vaccinated persons and before symptom onset in 3/6 symptomatic persons. These findings underscore the need for both non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination to mitigate transmission.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccines; Prisons; SARS-CoV-2; Virus shedding.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Summary of vaccination status, medical history, and laboratory findings among persons with COVID-19 infection identified during an outbreak in a federal prison, July-August 2021. Day 0 refers to the date of the first positive SARS-CoV-2 test [either rapid test or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)]. The vaccine manufacturers are listed as BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), and JNJ-7843735 (Johnson & Johnson/Janssen).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Diagram showing cycle threshold (Ct) values and viral culture result for participants throughout the course of infection. Each participant is shown by a colored line. Results are presented such that Day 0 is the day of the first positive SARS-CoV-2 result. The Ct values are shown using diamonds, and the color of the square surrounding the diamond indicates viral culture result.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lewis NM, Duca LM, Marcenac P, et al. Characteristics and Timing of Initial Virus Shedding in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, Utah, USA. Emerg Infect Dis 2021; 27:352–359. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33275874. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Long H., Zhao J., Zeng H.-L., et al. Prolonged viral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 and related factors in symptomatic COVID-19 patients: a prospective study. BMC Infect Dis. 2021;21:1282. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34961470 Available at: - PMC - PubMed
    1. ME, Ata Ur Rasheed M, Tamin A, et al. Shedding of Culturable Virus, Seroconversion, and 6-Month Follow-up Antibody Responses in the First 14 Confirmed Cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in the United States. J Infect Dis 2021; 224:771–776. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/224/5/771/6161320. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Singanayagam A, Patel M, Charlett A, et al. Duration of infectiousness and correlation with RT-PCR cycle threshold values in cases of COVID-19, England, January to May 2020. Euro Surveill 2020; 25. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32794447. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Puhach O, Adea K, Hulo N, Sattonnet P, Genecand C, Iten A. Infectious viral load in unvaccinated and vaccinated patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 WT , Delta and Omicron. medRxiv Prepr Serv Heal Sci 2022; :1–22. - PubMed

Publication types

Substances