Covid-19.
What we (UK) most urgently need to do is to:
a) Cut transmission globally (to reduce mutation and the arrival of variants that evade the immune system and vaccines)
b) Cut the number of people in the UK who get ill enough to be admitted to hospital…
1/9
What we (UK) most urgently need to do is to:
a) Cut transmission globally (to reduce mutation and the arrival of variants that evade the immune system and vaccines)
b) Cut the number of people in the UK who get ill enough to be admitted to hospital…
1/9
c) Cut transmission in the UK, see a) above, and to reduce eg #LongCovid
Vaccines - especially when given first to those most likely to get seriously ill and require hospital admissions - will definitely help with b). They are good at preventing serious illness.
2/9
Vaccines - especially when given first to those most likely to get seriously ill and require hospital admissions - will definitely help with b). They are good at preventing serious illness.
2/9
But we still don't really know how effective vaccines are at preventing transmission. And, with variant viruses which are more transmissible than the variant that we had a year ago, it's not clear that vaccines will ever bring Re below 1 without additional restrictions.
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3/9
I have described my concerns that vaccinations alone won't provide adequate herd immunity at peterenglish.blogspot.com/2021/02/select…
4/9
4/9
People are keen, of course, to return to "normal". And many see vaccines as the way back to normal. You often hear reports of people saying "Now I've had my vaccine, I hope I'll soon be able to…"
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5/9
But ironically the behaviour changes that might follow vaccination could jeopardise our ability to reduce transmission. People will know they have good (albeit not perfect) protection against serious illness, and might stop taking precautions.
6/9
6/9
If people stop taking precautions, believing themselves "safe" having been vaccinated, but they are still capable of being infected and transmitting the virus, they will add to the further transmission of the virus.
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7/9
And fully vaccinated people who get infected will create evolutionary pressure on the virus to evade their vaccine immunity.
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8/9
There's been a lot of talk about how "partial" vaccination might be an evolutionary pressure, creating an advantage viral mutations that evade the immune response.
I think we should be more concerned about this phenomenon in people who are full vaccinated.
9/9
I think we should be more concerned about this phenomenon in people who are full vaccinated.
9/9
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