People who have received a Covid jab may be relaxing too much, as data shows that one in 25 people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 since December have received at least one dose of a vaccine.
The majority of hospitalisations became infected with the virus shortly before or soon after receiving a jab, before they would have had time to develop any level of immunity to Covid-19.
According to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), who reviewed the data, it could be an indication that people are wrongly assuming they are immediately protected after receiving a dose of vaccine.
They may also have been infected shortly before getting vaccinated, during the vaccine appointment, or that the jab triggered Covid symptoms in people who had been infected but were asymptomatic.
Data submitted by the Covid-10 Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN) showed there were 1,802 recorded cases of vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with the virus in the UK as of 5 March - equivalent to 4.2 per cent of all Covid-related hospitalisations since 8 December, when the UK’s vaccination programme began.
The report found that the median time between vaccination and onset of Covid symptoms for these patients was five days. Immunity after a first vaccine jab for all the available vaccines develops around three to four weeks after the dose.
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According to minutes from Sage’s 83rd meeting on 11 March, the group said: “The observation that a significant number of people developing symptoms within a few days of a first dose may suggest some behaviour change following vaccination.
“It is important therefore that communications around vaccination reinforce the need for safe behaviours to be maintained.”
The CO-CIN report also noted: “Elderly and vulnerable people who had been shielding may have inadvertently been exposed and infected either through the end-to-end process of vaccination, or shortly after vaccination through behavioural changes where they wrongly assume they are immune.”
It comes as the latest government figures show the coronavirus reproduction number, or R value, across the UK is between 0.7 to 0.9, compared to a figure of between 0.6 and 0.9 last week.
This means that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between seven and nine other people. The latest growth rate shows the number of new infections is shrinking by between 2 per cent and 5 per cent every day.
