German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has tested positive for Covid-19, despite having received a vaccination. Seehofer previously turned down AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine.
Seehofer is “in domestic isolation and currently has no symptoms of the disease,” a spokesman from the Interior Ministry tweeted on Monday.
Seehofer, 71, received his first shot of Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine in mid-April. Two weeks earlier, he publicly defied Health Minister Jens Spahn’s call for his fellow cabinet ministers to take AstraZeneca’s vaccine, as public opinion of the AstraZeneca jab was falling, due to concerns it caused blood clots.
“The answer to Jens Spahn’s request is ‘No!’” Seehofer told Bild, a German tabloid. “I will not be patronized.”
Seehofer told Bild he had no problem with the AstraZeneca vaccine; rather, he had an issue with being bossed around.
There is currently no consensus as to whether vaccines completely stop infection. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in March that Pfizer’s shot was 90% effective at stopping infection two weeks after the second dose. The World Health Organization’s official line on vaccines is that “we still don’t know the extent to which it keeps you from being infected and passing the virus on to others.”
Had he received a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, Seehofer may have been among the unlucky 10% still open to infection. However, given he had received only one dose, that chance was likely higher.
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