oronavirus vaccines may not completely prevent people from transmitting the virus to other people and people who have had the sting should continue to abide by the blocking restrictions, the England medical deputy director said.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that if those who have been vaccinated start to relax because they are protected, they put at risk those on the list of priorities who still need to be inoculated.
His warning came when the latest government figures showed that the number of prescriptions for the first dose of vaccine across the UK has exceeded 5.8 million, with a record 478,248 who have obtained the jab in a single day.
* People arriving in the UK from abroad may have to quarantine at a hotel, according to various Sunday newspapers, with the cabinet divided over whether the policy should apply to all arrivals or only those returning from coronavirus hot spots.
* A collective representing more than 400 public and private schools has offered to vaccinate all teachers and educational support staff in England during the February semester in a letter to Boris Johnson, the Sunday Mail said.
* At least eight different vaccine passport systems have received government funding totaling £ 450,000 through January 1, according to the Sunday Telegraph, although Cabinet Minister Michael Gove has previously said these certificates ” they were not the plan. “
Professor Van-Tam, who wrote in the Telegraph, said it was not yet known whether vaccinated people could transmit the virus to other people, even though they themselves were protected from the disease.
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Van-Tam said people who have had the vaccine will have to follow the rules “for a while longer”
/ SWIMMING POOL / AFP via Getty Images )
“So even after you have taken both doses of the vaccine, you can still give Covid to someone else and the transmission chains will continue,” he wrote.
“If you change your behavior, you could continue to spread the virus, keeping the number of cases high and putting other people at risk who also need their vaccine, but who are more in line.
“Regardless of whether someone has had the vaccine or not, it is vital that everyone follows national restrictions and public health advice, as protection takes up to three weeks to start and we still don’t know the impact of vaccines in transmission.
“The vaccine has brought considerable hope and we are at the end of the pandemic, but for now, vaccinated or not, we still have to follow the guidelines for a while longer.”
Aside from that, 32 vaccination sites will open nationwide this week, including one at the museum known as the Peaky Blinders TV series.
Places include Dudley’s Black Country Living Museum, which featured on the long-running TV show, a racecourse, a football stadium, and a former Ikea store.
Professor Van-Tam also attacked doctors who criticized the decision to widen the gap between the first and second doses of the vaccine to 12 weeks.
The British Medical Association has written to the Chief Medical Officer of England asking for a rethink, saying that in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) had prescribed a maximum gap of six weeks.
Professor Van-Tam said widening the gap was the fastest way to get a first dose to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
He said, “But what none of these (who ask reasonable questions) will tell me is: who on the risk list should have slower access to their first dose because someone else who has already had a dose ( and therefore most protection) can you get a second? ”
AMB board chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said that while he understood the “foundation” behind the decision, no other country is taking the UK approach.
“We believe that the flexibility offered by the WHO to extend to 42 days extends too far to go from six weeks to 12 weeks,” he said.
“Obviously, protection won’t go away after six weeks, but what we don’t know is what level of protection will be offered. We shouldn’t extrapolate data where we don’t have it.”
Meanwhile, it is reported that schools in England will not fully reopen next month and may not return until after the Easter break.
The Sunday Times said Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was expected to rule out returning to the classroom after the February semester break and prepare parents for an extended period of home schooling.
Last Thursday, Williamson said he hoped schools could reopen before Easter, though Downing Street declined to approve his comments.