TOLEDO, Iowa — As more of us become eligible to get vaccinated, exactly how long will it take until we're immune?
That's the question from Lynda Nemec, who emailed the VERIFY team saying she heard it takes six weeks for the vaccine to be effective, thus why we must continue wearing masks. But this claim is missing some important context.
We turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ProMedica coronavirus expert Dr. Brian Kaminski to clarify.
"Six weeks is a timeframe that I have not heard of and I would say that that probably isn't accurate," Kaminski said. "We would expect to see that immunity with COVID in one to two weeks.
"If you're at least seven days out from the vaccine, then the studies would suggest that 95% immunity is achieved at that point in time."
That means you'll reach maximum protection from COVID about a week after your second dose.
Keep in mind: the two doses are separated by a few weeks. For Pfizer's vaccine, there's a three-week gap. For Moderna's, it's a month.
While the CDC says there isn't much data about the vaccine's effectiveness if you only get one dose, it's believed to be lower. But that doesn't mean it's zero.
"The immunity is a continuous process and the reason this is a two-part vaccine is because we believe we, in essence, first expose the immune system with that first dose and then we induce a memory response with that second dose," Kaminski said.
So we can VERIFY: this claim that it takes six weeks for the vaccines to become effective is false.
It takes a week or so for the protection to kick in -- and you'll reach maximum immunity about a week after your second dose.