Why do positive vaccinates have to be quarantined? How contagious are they for others? – breaking latest news

Boris Johnson was forced into isolation just on the eve of the end of all restrictions in England: the prime minister was in fact reached by the warning of quarantine obligation due to a meeting held on Friday with the Minister of Health, Sajid Javid, who tested positive for the coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated, as was Boris Johnson. In Great Britain, the quarantine is triggered if you are reported by the Covid tracking app and currently over half a million ordinary citizens across England are forced to isolate themselves because they have had contact with infected people.

Does it make sense to isolate oneself after a risky contact for a fully vaccinated person?
It doesn’t make sense with the previous variants, because vaccines also protect against infection. With the Delta variant the risk of becoming infected is higher, however the virus replicates less precisely because there is a vaccine, in fact, people who have been vaccinated either do not develop symptoms or have a very mild form of the disease, precisely because they have a low viral load. and therefore, in the vast majority of cases, they are also non-contagious, explains the immunologist Antonella Viola.

What is the orientation with respect to quarantine in the US and Europe?
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were the first to say that vaccinated people would not be tested, would not go into quarantine and may not use masks. In Europe, communication was not so clear and each country did it alone. In Italy there is still the obligation of quarantine, which cannot be expected to maintain over time, says Viola.

Is there a difference in risk with someone who only took one dose?
There are data from Israel that say that just one dose lowers the viral load: in positive vaccinated a reduction of up to 4 times was measured (for infections that occurred 12-28 days after the first dose). The reduced viral loads suggest a lower infectivity, for prudence, when we say that it is not necessary to quarantine, we are referring to fully vaccinated subjects, specifies the immunologist.

How contagious a vaccine is positive for others?
There are a number of studies that have analyzed the Alpha variant and have shown that the chances that a vaccine can infect are very low. With the Delta variant there are no published data yet, but studies are ongoing. Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser, said it is a reasonable hypothesis that fully vaccinated positive people have far fewer airway viruses than unvaccinated people with asymptomatic infections. What we see is that vaccinated people do not get infected in the same way and in most cases they have no symptoms. This means that the viral load is low and they have a lower chance of infecting others. The flaw of this type of study is that a vaccinated person will be tested much less and, even if it were positive, it would be easily asymptomatic and therefore, once again, subjected to less swabs.

Could it also depend on the type of vaccine I was immunized with?
Yes, it is possible that there are vaccines that have a greater ability to offer neutralizing immunity in the airways and therefore to better block viral replication, she notes.

What should we do with the Delta variant with the quarantine and mask rules?
We must give a clear signal to those who made the two doses: I would be to remove the quarantine, however we must tell the vaccinated people that the situation has changed. With the Delta variant it is good that, when they are with unvaccinated people, they use a mask and spacing because there could be a risk, albeit very low, of infecting them and making them sick, concludes the specialist.