Public health officials revealed that the biggest mistake one can make after receiving the first Covid-19 vaccine shot is immediately going back to socialising.
The health officials, quoted in The Guardian report, stated that resuming lives as they were before Covid-19 right after getting the vaccination can be a risky move.
David Halpern, Ph.D., chair of the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team, told British Parliament: “We definitely do worry that people feel that, the second they have got that vaccination, they are good to go. People feel, as soon as they have got that vaccination: ‘Fantastic, I’m going to be able to go out’.”
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also stressed that the full protection against the virus will only be achieved after the administration of the second dose of the vaccine.
The second dose is set to be administered three to four weeks after the first dose. CDC revealed that it may take up to 12 to 14 days for the vaccines to yield results.
Stephen Reicher, PhD, from the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group, told The Guardian : “Some people think the effect of the vaccine is absolutely immediate. Some people believe that you can’t transmit the disease—and there is a lack of clarity on that from the medical community.”
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Researchers believe that the timeline for returning to “normal life” will depend mostly on how much of the population is vaccinated.
During an interview with CNBC in December, Anthony Fauci, MD, stated that in order to achieve herd immunity, “You would need somewhere between 70, 75, maybe 80 percent of the population vaccinated. [That’s] the number that I’ve been using again, it’s an estimate. You can make an extrapolation from other infections,” as per media reports.