WHO urges the fully vaccinated to keep masks on

GENEVA • World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, concerned about the easing of precautions meant to stop the spread of Covid-19, have urged even fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks and to keep taking other measures to prevent infection.

This comes after the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told fully vaccinated Americans last month they no longer need to wear masks indoors or maintain a distance of about 2m from other people.

It also eased advice about testing and quarantine after suspected exposure.

Asked on Monday about the new WHO precautions, a CDC spokesman pointed to the existing guidance and gave no indication that it would change.

The highly infectious Delta variant was first detected in India and has been identified in at least 85 countries.

In the US, where its prevalence has doubled in the last two weeks, the variant is responsible for one in every five Covid-19 cases.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious diseases expert, has called it "the greatest threat" to eliminating the virus in the US.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last Friday that the rise of the new variants "makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission", including consistent use of vaccination and public health and social measures.

Dr Mariangela Simao, the WHO's assistant director-general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, also stressed that even vaccinated people should continue to consistently wear masks, avoid crowds and maintain social distance from others.

They should also make sure they are in well-ventilated spaces, wash their hands often and avoid sneezing or coughing around others.

Dr Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO adviser, said: "What we're saying is, 'Once you've been fully vaccinated, continue to play it safe, because you could end up as part of a transmission chain'. You may not actually be fully protected.

"I think the first message we want to be careful about is saying, 'Once you're vaccinated, you can just go ahead and do whatever'."

The comments were made in the context of broader statements criticising the inequitable distribution of vaccines and the lack of access to vaccination in many parts of the world where the virus is spreading.

Covax, the WHO programme that poor countries rely on for vaccines, has "zero doses" of AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines or those made by the Serum Institute of India available for distribution, Dr Aylward said.

While less than 2 per cent of Africa's population is vaccinated, some countries are buying vaccines for young people who are at relatively low risk of contracting Covid-19.

Even in countries where there are ample supplies of vaccines, full vaccination rates are lower than they could be, he said.

Though fully vaccinated people are largely protected from symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid-19 infections, studies suggest that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine's efficacy against the Delta variant is slightly lower than against other variants.

The efficacy is significantly lower for those who have received only one dose of the vaccine.

Countries with relatively high vaccination rates have seen an uptick in infections driven by the Delta variant.

Britain, where some two-thirds of the population have received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine and just under half have received two doses, is grappling with a sharp rise in infections from the variant.

In Israel, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, a rise in cases attributed to the Delta variant has led the government to reimpose mask-wearing mandates indoors and at large outdoor gatherings.

Given how pernicious and fast-moving the variant is, "the vaccine approach is not enough", said Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

"We're not at the level of vaccinations where we can release the brakes on everything else and herd immunity will grind transmissions to a halt."

NYTIMES