Vaccinated People May Still Spread CCP Virus: UK Medical Officer

Vaccinated People May Still Spread CCP Virus: UK Medical Officer
People queue outside the mass NHS vaccine centre that has been set up at the Millennium Point centre in Birmingham, UK, on Jan. 11, 2021. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Alexander Zhang
1/24/2021
Updated:
1/25/2021
People who have received two doses of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine may still spread the virus to others, a senior British medical officer has warned.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, said on Jan. 24 that “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,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

Therefore, he urged the millions of Britons who have already been vaccinated to keep following the lockdown rules.

“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.”

Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, speaks during a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street, in central London, UK, on Dec. 2, 2020. (John Sibley/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, speaks during a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street, in central London, UK, on Dec. 2, 2020. (John Sibley/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday that Van-Tam “is right”.

“Vaccines are the way out of this pandemic, but everyone must follow the rules, even once we’ve had the vaccine,” he wrote on Twitter.

Van-Tam also warned that “no vaccine has ever been 100 percent effective” and “no-one will have 100 percent protection from the virus.”

Earlier this month, a British nurse wrote in a Facebook post that he tested positive for the virus even though he received his first dose of the vaccine on Dec. 8, 2020. His second dose on Jan. 5 was cancelled and four weeks later he tested positive for the virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease.

Van-Tam said that 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.”

He added that “the way to reduce everyone’s risk is to break the chains of transmission and really push down the number of cases.”

He further warned that there are still “very high” numbers of hospital admissions and deaths, with a quarter of people hospitalised under the age of 55.

By Saturday, 5,861,351 people had received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK, the government said.

Public Health England reported on Saturday that there were 33,552 new CCP virus cases across the UK and 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.