Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said it was “really important” that vaccinated people do not think they are “invincible”.
When asked on BBC Breakfast on Sunday how concerned he was that the Covid vaccine programme was going to keep the virus under control as lockdowns are eased, he said: “It’s really important that people who are vaccinated can remember that they aren’t completely protected.
“They’re protected against severe disease, hospitalisation and death, but they might not be protected against infection after one dose, it takes three or four weeks for the vaccine effects to kick in, and they could potentially still transmit.
“It’s really important that people who are vaccinated still obey the rules. And I think if we unlockdown [sic] slowly and people behave … and are very sensible about this, then we’ve got a way out.
“Of course, if neither of those things happen and the virus starts transmitting again and cases rise, it could mutate, we could find new variants and then we could get ‘vaccine escape’.
“So really, really important that people stick to the rules, that we unlockdown slowly, patiently, and those that are vaccinated obey the same rules and don’t think that they’re invincible.”
