Originally Posted by
MMProfessor
Vaccines only prevent you from getting really sick from the virus. You can still be a carrier. Virus particles in your throat and nasal passage are not in contact with your blood so the antibodies from the vaccine cannot destroy them. You can certainly still test positive after full vaccination.
While this is certainly a bit of an outlier scenario, I imagine it is theoretically possible (just like false positives), and why I generally oppose testing requirements for fully-vaccinated adults. I think the scenario you describe only makes one a "carrier" of the virus in a literal sense; most certainly not from a clinical perspective.
"Orphan" vaccine particles lodged in mucous membranes of a fully-vaccinated adult are not a threat to public health, even though they might lead to a positive PCR test.