>>12598249The vaccine has given us hope, but we still need to follow the rules
Vaccines offer the way out of the coronavirus pandemic and a return to life as we knew it, but infection rates still need to come down
JONATHAN VAN-TAM
DEPUTY CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER FOR ENGLAND
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/23/vaccine-has-given-us-hope-still-need-follow-rules/To do that there are some important scientific points I want to highlight:
No vaccine has ever been 100 per cent effective so no-one will have 100 per cent protection from the virus. The way to reduce everyone’s risk is to break the chains of transmission and really push down the number of cases.
Vaccines work by tricking your body into thinking it has to fight the virus. It trains you for this fight by making antibodies and stimulating T-cells; then you are ready if you do come across the real thing. However, like any training, getting up to ‘match fitness’ takes time. Your body’s response, the immune response, is only fully trained up around two or three weeks after you have each of your two jabs. If you are older it’s better to allow at least three weeks. You can still get Covid-19 in this time.
Even better and longer lasting protection then comes from the second dose, so it is really important that everyone gets the second jab.
Really importantly, we do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission of the virus. So even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give Covid-19 to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue. If you change your behaviour you could still be spreading the virus, keeping the number of cases high and putting others at risk who also need their vaccine but are further down the queue.
