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Public health experts warn “vaccines don’t eliminate all risks” amid early signs jabs may not stop Delta transmission.
Hundreds of fully vaccinated people in England have been hospitalized with the highly contagious variant of the Delta coronavirus, scientists said on Friday.
In its latest COVID-19 update, Public Health England (PHE) also warned that there were early signs that people who have been inoculated may be able to transmit the Delta strain as easily as those who haven’t. received no vaccine.
From July 19 to August 2, 55.1% of the 1,467 people hospitalized with the Delta variant were not vaccinated, PHE said, while 34.9% – or 512 people – had received two doses.
Dubbed ‘Freedom Day’, July 19 was the date on which England significantly eased lockdown restrictions.
All vaccines used in the UK – those produced by AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech – require recipients to receive two doses to be fully inoculated.
About 75 percent of the UK’s adult population has received two injections to date.
“As the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of people vaccinated in the hospital,” PHE said.
Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the hospitalization figures showed “once again how important it is that we all show up to receive both doses of the vaccine as soon as we can.”
“Vaccination is the best tool we have to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the risk of serious illness that COVID-19 can pose,” Harries said in a statement.
“However, it should also be remembered that vaccines do not eliminate all risks: it is always possible to get sick with COVID-19 and to infect others.”
Dominant strain
PHE’s findings are consistent with those of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which raised concerns last week that vaccinated people infected with Delta could, unlike other variants, easily transmit it.
Vaccines have been shown to provide good protection against serious illness and death from Delta, especially with two doses, but there is less evidence that people who are vaccinated can still pass it on to others.
“Some initial findings… indicate that virus levels in those infected with Delta who have previously been vaccinated may be similar to levels found in unvaccinated people,” PHE said.
“This may have implications for the infectivity of people, whether or not they have been vaccinated. However, this is an early exploratory analysis and further targeted studies are needed to confirm if this is the case. “
The Delta variant has become the dominant form of coronavirus circulating around the world, supporting a pandemic that has already killed more than 4.4 million people, including more than 130,000 in the UK.
It now accounts for 99% of all COVID-19 infections in the UK, PHE said.
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