Can someone please explain

The vaccine isn’t 100% effected as I understand it so there will still be people who will possibly catch it. I don’t want to be one so although I’ve received my first vaccine I will still be doing hands,face,space for now.

it was made clear to us that once vaccinated you still have to protect yourself by ' hands face and space'. You can still get the virus but mildly compared to if not vaccinated. A vaccine isn't 'magic'.

You ve missed the main news annie we have always been told that the vaccine is not 100% and may mostly be useful at stopping the illness progressing to be a death threat

Today on the radio I heard that both Oxford and Pfizer have proved to be 90% effective although the number does seem to keep changing so maybe we ll soon hear more stable numbers as time goes by and more information is gleaned

I have been shielding for health reasons for a year. I received my first dose three weeks ago and received a letter saying I still need to shield until the end of March.
As others have said the vaccine does not give complete protection. Also they don't have enough data yet to see that if people get a mild dose, or are asymptomatic, they can still pass it on. So it isn't just about protecting the individual, it is about keeping others safe too.
Hope this clears it up.

I also think that the government - and simple psychology makes that obvious, that if restrictions are released for some people, for example the vaccinated, then the whole restriction lockdown process will collapse instantly

'If so-and-so can go out, nobody will notice if I do as well'

It is a question of having a system that applies to everybody whether you are vaccinated or not, in order to have an orderly relaxation of restrictions, phased around infection numbers.

I have had the jab and it it certainly good to know that I am safer from getting the disease than I used to be. In the meanwhile I will stick to the rules because the more people who do, the quicker the restrictions will go.

I’ll carry on with hands and space for good. Masks I would look odd when we’ll no longer be required to wear them!

It was reported last week that the Astra/Zeneca vaccine stops at least 60% of transmission. Yesterday another little snippet in the news, both vaccines prevent transmission, but no figure was released. I’m fed up of all the they don’t stop transmission because in common with other vaccines, it’s being found out that they do. We’ll know more as time moves forward and the effects of the vaccines are better understood. Having said that, and having had both the virus and the vaccine, which together give me excellent protection, I continue to practice hands, face, space, when I’m out and about.

What puzzles me is why everyone is getting so hung up about the minutae of this vaccine, when we assiduously vaccinate our DC/DGC with everything in sight and, as far as I know. no-one ever worries about efficacy and transmission and so on and so on.

I have had the flu jab, shingles and the pneumo one in the last ten years, as, no doubt, so have many of you. Have any of you asked the detailed and complicated questions about them that are now being asked of the COVID vaccine? I certainly haven't.

No. Nor of the yellow fever, hepatitis and rabies jabs I had to have to travel in some parts of the world.

There’s been such a lot of deliberate attempts to scupper this vaccine?

Very true Monica and Peasblossom.

It's probably the fear factor attached to the pandemic as well as the uncertainty of the efficacy of a quickly organised vaccine that has scared most. No thanks to the media who weren't born when the last pandemic struck in 1957 when folk went about their business without such things as lockdowns.

As you say Monica and Peasblossom, we've been having flu, shingles jabs etc for years and years, also rabies etc for travelling abroad. The things is that this vaccine is completely new and so folk are particularly interested in the minutae as to its efficacy and safety. This pandemic is such a huge part of everyone's lifes, everything is bound to be picked apart for discussion.

covid.joinzoe.com/webinar/covid-vaccines-immune-system?utm_source=App

The team from Kings College who are doing the Zoe Symptom Study are hosting a webinar on the vaccines next Wednesday.
The link above should take you to the registration page, if anyone’s interested.

The reason that more people were added to the shielding list seems to be to ensure that people with e.g diabetes are bumped up the vaccine list. I had my vaccine before the letter arrived but I am now shielding as I have been asked to to ensure I don't put myself at risk.

Mind you I had a very mild dose of Covid in January - I was asked to get a covid test as I subscribe to the Zoe covid app - but my only symptoms were sneezing and a runny nose and I was positive. My GP didn't believe me when she found out that I wasn't really ill as she felt being diabetic I should have been!

But as I understand it the vaccine isnt entirely new I believe it was all in the pipeline for SARS but been retweeked ellen

Bluebelle, precisely. And I do not remember all this fuss when the Ebola vaccine was developed and issued in double quick time. Nor when the Shingles vaccine was rolled out about 8 years ago.

And while COVID is a new type of corona virus, that class of virus has been around and common in populations for centuries. Vaccines for corona viruses have been ander thought and development for decades.

Perhaps we should be revising the school curriculum, so that the understandng of science and scientific method is included.

It isn't a "new" vaccine. It is part of the corona virus ones and has been tweaked for covid 19. It has been fast tracked for this, but isn't a new vaccine.
It has never been classed as 100% against the virus. You can still get covid 19, but the chances are you will have it in a much milder form and not require hospital treatment. It is the same for any vaccine, including flu, you can still get the illness, but milder than you may have done.
I also don't understand the constant questioning of this vaccine either, it isn't done for other vaccines.

It concerns me that although the vaccine roll out is going very well, there is still a high level of virus circulating in many areas. The vaccine isn’t yet a magic bullet.

I think for this reason it is important to remain cautious because there are risks whilst infection numbers remain relatively high, that different vaccine resistant viruses may emerge.

The faster more people are vaccinated hopefully cases will continue to drop, but I do not believe this stage has been reached yet and the danger of giving dates for lockdown to be eased, is that people will become careless.

I do have concerns about the vaccine and do not fully understand if the vaccine is resistant to different variants
of the virus.
I read in local paper that the South African variant has been detected and people now self isolating from it also the test kits are being sent to households the area is not far from me.
Having this information did not fill me with confidence as it seemed the warm weather yesterday or even the fact we have been told the country is doing so well had brought people out of their homes and the supermarket was busy with almost no social distancing going on that I left and went to a smaller shopping area. The shopping was more expensive but at least people were monitored and social distancing was in place.

We can’t know how effective current vaccines will be against new variants until more research is done. You need a substantial number of people to catch the new variant in order to test the vaccine against it obviously.

What we do know is that the more people that catch the present virus, the more opportunities it has to mutate and produce variants. It can’t mutate on its own. It has to do it in a host body.

Refusing the vaccine isn’t just a personal decision, it does affect everyone.

Too true Peasblossom. The Brazilian variant has been discovered in Scotland and England and whether the current vacc is effective against it is as yet not known. Fingers crossed I say.

3nanny6 The vaccines are effective against the new variants.

Here is a link discussing just the question you ask www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/covid-variant

BHF is the British Heart Foundation, a reliable nd respectable source.

MOnica I checked this site.”We don’t have good evidence yet whether the Astra Zenica/Pfizer vaccine is effective against the Brazil variant” is what it says. It may indeed be effective but there is not enough evidence to state this. I hope it is.

Disclaimer first - I have no special knowledge about vaccines.

But from what I have read, its very unlikely that the vaccines we have will just not work against new variants. Their effectiveness could be less, but it won't be non-existent. Since the vaccines we have are super-effective, then any reduction in effect is regrettable, but not a disaster.

I also read on the BBC website today that the mutations in the Brazilian strain are similar to the mutations in the SA strain. So that says to me that the mutations are well understood.