Why fully vaccinated people must stick to SOPs

A health worker administers AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Health Minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, at Mulago Women’s Specialised Hospital in Kampala recently.

What you need to know:

  • The government has so far vaccinated 854,443 people, which is about 2 per cent of the population.

With more than 90,000 people fully vaccinated with both the first and second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the urge to relax adherence to Covid-19 prevention measures is tempting.
But scientists have warned that those who are fully vaccinated still stand a risk of contracting the infection and that others may develop severe sickness and die, especially due to the new variants.

Prof Pauline Byakika, the infectious disease expert at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, told Daily Monitor yesterday that people should continue wearing face masks because the AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t give 100 per cent protection from Covid-19.
“The vaccine protects you mostly against severe disease and death. It [also] protects you from infection but it is not a hundred per cent effective, so you should continue wearing your masks and observing other Covid-19 preventive measures,” she said.

In some countries such as the United States of America, rules on wearing masks and social distancing are relaxed for those who are fully vaccinated, according to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The country is using Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which have the efficacy of around 95 per cent compared to AstraZeneca whose efficacy is 76 per cent.  
Dr Misaki Wayengera, the head of the Government Scientific Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said although AstraZeneca vaccine protects recipients against delta variants of Covid-19, the level is low.

“The data we have shows that with the delta variant, the effectiveness of AstraZeneca reduces to 33.1 per cent at the first dose and after the second dose, it the increases to 51.7 per cent,” he said.
The country rolled out the second round of vaccination on Monday after receiving additional donation of 175,200 doses of AstraZeneca from French government.
The government has so far vaccinated 854,443 people, which is about 2 per cent of the population.