If you’re fully vaccinated and start coughing, should you get tested for COVID-19? The answer has changed within the last few weeks.
To verify, we used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidance and consulted with two of the country’s leading virologists, Drs. Alex Greninger and Larry Corey, who are both associated with the University of Washington.
"Yes, I think people who are fully vaccinated who think they have COVID should get tested," Corey said.
Greninger concurred.
"There's no downside," Greninger said. "It's reasonable to get tested...the drive-throughs and other collection sites are open."
As recently as May 2021, the CDC said vaccinated people don't need to get tested for COVID, because there was such a small risk of serious illness or spreading it.
But as sure as the calendar changes, so can biology.
And since so many American’s aren’t getting vaccinated, the coronavirus is mutating, and the delta variant is bad enough that the CDC updated its stance and now says you should get tested.
Our experts agree.
"It's important for us to understand vaccine breakups," Corey said. "First of all, the vaccines are not 100%. So, [even though the vaccines are 94.6% effective at preventing hospitalization and death], you can still get it. And second of all, we want to find out is it a novel variant that is escaping or is it not?
Helping prevent a variant that’s even worse is just one more reason we can verify: Yes – even if you’re vaccinated, you should get tested for COVID if you have symptoms or come in contact with anybody who is positive, even if they’re asymptomatic.