Arrivals into Jersey from the UK who have had both of their Covid vaccinations will not need to isolate at all. That is just one of the announcements that is due to be made at the government's latest press conference at 3:30pm this afternoon.
Welcome to the roadmap towards Lockdown 3!
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| Alan B'Stard The Jersey Politician behind the Reopening Strategy |
While Dr Muscat says positively that vaccination can stop the virus from being transmitted, it does not stop it 100%. What he didn't say was this, noted in "The Conversations"
In April, Public Health England reported the results of a large study of COVID-19 transmission involving more than 365,000 households with a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated members.
It found immunisation with either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine reduced the chance of onward virus transmission by 40-60%. This means that if someone became infected after being vaccinated, they were only around half as likely to pass their infection on to others compared to infected people who weren’t vaccinated.
That's good news for the R number, as it should help keep it down. It's bad news if you think you can go back to letting people in and wandering around before a test result if they have had two vaccination shots, under the misapprehension that Covid will be kept out.
In April, Public Health England reported the results of a large study of COVID-19 transmission involving more than 365,000 households with a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated members.
It found immunisation with either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine reduced the chance of onward virus transmission by 40-60%. This means that if someone became infected after being vaccinated, they were only around half as likely to pass their infection on to others compared to infected people who weren’t vaccinated.
That's good news for the R number, as it should help keep it down. It's bad news if you think you can go back to letting people in and wandering around before a test result if they have had two vaccination shots, under the misapprehension that Covid will be kept out.
The science is plain, even if Dr Muscat doesn't spell it out in such negative terms. Community transmission will begin again, and remember that the borders open in this way before nightclubs open, and before most in the range 18-30 have been vaccinated.
Why is that important, when we know the virus has less effect with younger people? Because that is yesterday's news. The new Indian variants are much more deadly to younger people. As the Express and Star Notes:
A variant of coronavirus currently emerging in India could be a ‘significantly’ greater threat to young adults than any previous variant, Birmingham’s public health chief has warned.... And the new variant could also be a greater threat to children, Dr Justin Varney said, as he described the Indian variant as a ‘clear and present danger’ to the UK’s Covid roadmap.
When Covid got back inside Guernsey, it spread most rapidly with schools, and we can expect the new Indian variant to do the same.
The lesson of last November was that we cannot use track and trace to test our way out of rising numbers - they will overwhelm the system.
I predict: with the finer weather and more outdoor events, community transmission (brought in by the travel policy) will return, but not initially as bad as before, yet gradually growing. But come September and the onset of Winter, and expect another surge, leading to the need for yet another lockdown.
It doesn't have to be this way, but the politicians have been led, not by science, but by their their own cupidity. Greed, heedless of caution, will bring another lockdown.
But will anyone who pressed for these changes admit they got it wrong? Don't hold your breath.
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