According to Neil Fergusson’s study ‘Professor Lockdown,’ double-jabbed people still have a 1 in 4 chance of contracting Covid through an infected household member.
This is true even if the infected person was fully jabbed, which is known as a vaccine breakthrough, according to Imperial College London researchers.
But the risk to unvaccinated household members was even greater, with a 38 per cent chance of catching the virus from infected household members.
Scientists were surprised to find that protection provided by the Covid vaccines started to decrease three months after the second dose.
According to the researchers, these findings make it even more important for people to get their booster jab.
The research, commissioned by the UK Government, covered both Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s jabs and looked at more than 600 Britons.
Researchers also discovered that the likelihood of someone spreading Covid if they are infected by it does not change if they have been vaccinated. This could explain why the Delta variant is still so common.
Jabbed people recover quicker from the virus, which results in less severe and shorter symptoms.Being vaccinated reduces the chance of contracting Covid.
Researchers stated that the study is important because Covid transmission is more common in homes due to frequent contact with smaller, less ventilated spaces.
The study showed that double-jabbed people still had a 25% chance to catch Covid, potentially spreading it to other people. However, this was likely to be a mild case. The 38 percent chance that an unvaccinated person would catch Covid from an infected household member was higher. This could lead to severe illness, hospitalisation or even death.
The study showed that there was little difference in the Covid Delta virus load between the unjabbed and jabbed. Both were at peak infectiousness, which is when they are most likely pass the virus to others, approximately three to four days after contracting the virus. The peak was when vaccination was most effective. The jabbed were able to fight the virus better and recover faster with less severe symptoms.
Professor Neil Ferguson, also known as “Professor Lockdown” for his role in getting No10 to impose the first Covid Lockdown in March 2021, said that it was too soon to determine if Covid cases had peaked. He added that the Covid booster campaign was crucial to the next stage in the pandemic.
One of the authors of the study stated that it proved that the jabbed cannot be relied upon for protection.
Professor Ajit Lalvani, Imperial College of London’s chair on infections diseases Contributors to the study The results showed that there was still a significant chance of infection, even if you have the Coivd vaccine.
‘Even if that person is double vaccinated they tend to transmit infection to other household members,’ he said.
‘About one in four people exposed in the household to a breakthrough case get infected, which is quite a large number.’
But Professor Lalvani said the risk of Covid infection was even greater for unvaccinated household members, proving the merits of getting a vaccine.
‘When we looked at unvaccinated contacts in the households their risk of acquiring infection was around 38 per cent,’ he said.
‘This means that the vaccine is still effective at reducing the risk of transmission, in this case from 38 per cent to 25 per cent.’
Professor Lalvani explained, however, that the real difference lay in what happened after infection.
He said that because they have been double vaccinated, they tend to get mild illness or symptom-free infections.
“Unvaccinated persons are at greater risk of serious illness, hospitalisation, and death if they become infected.”
Professor Lalvani also stated that the study found that it only took three months to see a decline of Covid protection in fully jabbed individuals.
‘Surprisingly, already by three months after receipt of the second vaccine dose the risk of acquiring infection was higher, compared to being more recently vaccinated,’ he said.
Although the scientists acknowledged that their sample of 600 households was too small for them to determine the extent of waning immunity in this area, they stated that it demonstrated the importance of obtaining a Covid booster if you are eligible.
Another aspect of the study was to determine the difference in viral loads between people who had been vaccinated against those who had not.
The viral load refers to how many viruses are in a substance. In the case of Covid, this refers to how much is in the upper respiratory tract (mouth, nose, throat), and nasal cavities.
Professor Lalvani explained how they found that vaccination status had no effect on the amount or timing of peak infectivity. This is when people are most susceptible to transmit the virus to others.
‘Vaccination did not affect the time that people spent in the window of highest infectiousness,’ he said.
This window of infection usually occurs three to four days before the onset or symptoms of Covid.
The fact that Covid jabs are not required during this critical period of Covid transmission could be why the Delta variant is still so contagious, despite widespread vaccination.
Professor Lalvani stated that vaccinations did not make a significant difference after the peak, when the body starts producing antibodies to fight the virus.
‘The effect of vaccination is to accelerate the decline in viral road in the upper repository tract, so people would clear the virus infection quicker which is good news,’ he said.
‘This helps to explain why vaccinated people even when infected get less symptoms, quicker resolution of their symptoms and crucially have much, much, lower risk of developing severe disease.’
He said that the jabbed could not be relied upon by the unvaccinated for protection.
‘Unvaccinated people cannot therefore rely on the immunity of the vaccinated population for protection,’ he said.
‘They remain susceptible to infection and risk of serious illness and death.’
Professor Lalvani stated that the key takeaway from the study’s was to get vaccinated and get your booster vaccine as soon as you can, especially when winter months, when people spend more of their time indoors, are only a few short weeks away.
‘The highest possible vaccine coverage and timely booster doses are thus essential to combatting Covid,’ he said.
‘If people are not yet vaccinated they should get vaccinated and people, when they’ve had their vaccines and become eligible for a booster, should get that booster as soon as possible.’
Dr Anika Singanayagam was co-lead author. She stated that the study proved the importance to maintain some Covid restrictions, even for those who are vaccinated.
‘Continued public health and social measures to curb transmission – such as masking wearing, social distancing, and testing – thus remain important, even in vaccinated individuals,’ she said.
The study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases looked at 621 participants contacted by NHS Track and Trace between September 2020 and September 2021.
163 of these 163 contacts had Covid positive results.
Participants were given PCR tests every day for up to 20 consecutive days to determine their viral load. Additionally, their vaccination status was recorded.
Professor Ferguson also contributed to the study. He said that the key to containing the pandemic was the effectiveness and slow pace of the Covid booster programme.
The key Government advisor, whose modelling prompted the first lockdown last March — said it was too early to say if Covid cases in Britain had peaked but he added there were encouraging signs.
‘Too early to say whether we have reached a peak, mainly because this week is half-term week and so we know lots of people go on holiday and testing patterns are different than usual,’ he said.
‘We will have to wait at least a couple of weeks, if not closer to three to be sure, but there are some encouraging signs in terms of the dip in case numbers.’
Yesterday was the fourth consecutive day of decline in Covid cases in Britain. Another 43,941 new infections were reported by the Department of Health, a decrease of 10.6 percent compared to last Wednesday’s total of 49,000.
After reaching a three-month high last Monday, daily cases have been decreasing since Sunday. Ministers from Government today claimed that there is less than 20% chance of ministers activating their winter Plan B.
However, the number of people who die from Covid continues to rise. Today, there were 207 new deaths. It was 15.6 percent higher than the 179 recorded last week.
According to the most recent data, there was a 2.9% increase in hospitalizations week-on–week on Saturday. They reached 894, an increase of 869 from the previous week.
Professor Ferguson stated that the booster program’s success would be crucial to keeping Covid under control in this winter’s weather, but he noted that there is still uncertainty about the predictions.
‘If isn’t peaking now then most of the SAGE modelling out there would suggest that it should peak so long as we keep getting boosters into people’s are and achieve a reasonable high, 90 per cent or so, coverage of boosters,’ he said.
‘Then we should start to see a sustained decline in the coming weeks, but there is a lot of uncertainty in the modelling in all three groups that contributed into that exercise going into SAGE, about when exactly the peak will be.’
SAGE published optimistic modeling last week predicting daily infections could fall to 5,000 in the coming months, even though No10 is not willing to comply with demands and resort to virus-controlling measures.