Will not be safe to hug family until 60 per cent of UK has had second dose, expert warns

A leading Covid expert has warned it may not be safe to hug your family until 60 per cent of the UK has had a second vaccine dose.

Professor Tim Spector, lead scientist on the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app, said it remains unclear how well the jabs prevent transmission and there is "always going to be some risk".

Downing Street is confident it will have offered first doses to all adults by September and with second doses available after 12 weeks, most would have had it by December.

"There is always going to be some risk involved," said epidemiologist Prof Spector, of King's College London.

"While we know that there is partial immunity from a fortnight after the first dose, we still don't know how well vaccines prevent transmission so people need to use their common sense."

Referring to when people can hug those outside their household again, he went on to say: "If you can, it's safest to wait until more than 60 per cent of the population have been vaccinated with the second vaccine dose, especially for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions."

Speaking earlier this month, he said the good news is that the infection rates are continuing to drop since the peak around the New Year, while millions of people are being vaccinated every week.

The government has estimated all adults will have been offered their first dose by September (PA)

"This is a highly contagious virus and it's likely that there will be some level of restrictions in place for many months to come to guard against the resurgence of new variants," Prof Spector continued.

"But if things continue improving in the same direction, we should be in a much better place by the summer - we just need to take care now to make sure we get there," he added.

The latest figures show just 558,577 people across the UK have had their second dose - with the rollout having started over a month ago.

And with a population of nearly 67 million, it would mean around 40 million would need to have been jabbed twice before hugging can resume.

It is unclear if Prof Spector was referring to adults, as children under 16 are not currently being offered the vaccination.

There are four different sources of data on Covid-19 in the UK: ZOE, ONS, REACT1 and confirmed cases.

The ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey reports on the number of daily new symptomatic cases (incidence).

The Mirror has contacted Prof Spector and ZOE for further comment.