An expert said today that the elderly should not kiss their grandchildren even if they have received a second dose of coronavirus vaccine.
Professor Anthony Harnden, vice chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunization (JCVI), said it may not be safe to break the rules of social distancing even after taking two doses.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, a listener asked Professor Harnden if he was allowed to kiss his school-age grandchildren, and the JCVI vice-president replied “no”.
“You have to be very careful and remember that even after the second dose of vaccine it is not necessarily 100% effective,” he said.
“For now, we still have to be careful and follow the rules and I don’t think kissing grandchildren is allowed.”
Professor Harnden added that while the vaccine offers protection against serious disease, the protection it offers in general is still unknown.
“Well it will offer you good protection against serious illnesses and hospitalization, but we don’t know yet what protection it will offer against asymptomatic infections,” he said.
An investigation led by Public Health Scotland found that four weeks after the first dose, hospital admissions were reduced by 94 per cent for the AstraZeneca jab.
Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been shown to be 95% and 94.5% effective, respectively.
Government advisers said the UK vaccine program should continue to be based on age, and that those in their forties are expected to be offered a punch in a few weeks.
Professor Harnden’s comments come when Sage scientist Susan Michie warned that people could follow blocking restrictions less strictly after being vaccinated against the coronavirus.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “The concern is that as the vaccination program unfolds, and more people are vaccinating themselves and seeing other people in their community vaccinated, people may leave the vaccination guard “.
He said the evidence comes from the implementation of vaccines against Lyme disease and the flu, where vaccinated people were less likely to adhere to preventive behaviors.
In national surveys conducted in December, approximately 29% of people said that after getting vaccinated they would adhere less strictly to the rules and 11% said they would not comply with them.