”˜Vaccine confusion: Here are the facts.’

Professor John Shine, world-renowned biochemist and President of the Australian Academy of Science, clears some of the confusion to do with Covid-19 vaccine:

On the goal of the vaccines:

“With these first-generation vaccines, the whole attempt was to provide reduction in the seriousness of the disease, to keep the hospital systems from being overloaded, to stop us dying in many cases.”    

On transmission:

“It’s not yet clear to the extent that they will prevent transmission of the virus between people. So even though you may have had a vaccine, you may still be infectious to others who haven’t had a vaccine. So you still need to practice, very much, the standard social distancing, personal hygiene, and governments need to follow up with the contact tracing.”

On the government response:

“The government has listened very carefully and developed policy which has been driven by the science. They’ve obviously made sure that we have access to a range of potential vaccines. The very good news for Australians of course is that one of those vaccines, the AstraZeneca vaccine, is being manufactured in Melbourne, so we are assured of a plentiful supply.”     

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