People are likely to let their guard down and not adhere to coronavirus lockdown regulations once they have been vaccinated, according to a study by Prof. Susan Michie, director of the Centre for Behavior Change at University College London.Michie, whose work was reported on by The Guardian, warns that people should not drop their guard. She cited evidence from previous vaccine rollouts - from national surveys and from Israel, which has the highest vaccination rate in the world - indicating that the general public will not take lockdown regulations as seriously once they have been jabbed.“The concern is that as the vaccination program rolls out and more people are getting vaccinated themselves and seeing other people in their community getting vaccinated, people may drop their guard,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.Other evidence Michie refers to is vaccine rollouts related to influenza and Lyme disease, where those vaccinated were less likely to adhere to health restrictions at the time. The past week saw Israelis taking to the streets
protesting against forced vaccine coercion in Tel Aviv, calling for more "government transparency."
“People may think they are more immune than they are, because we still don’t know how much immunity the different vaccines give, [or] how long that’s going to last. There’s also a question mark over the decrease in infectiousness,” Michie said."It's a question of getting the message across that we absolutely need to get the population vaccinated so we can begin to lift restrictions, but it doesn’t mean at this moment in time that people can afford to in any way drop their guard,” she said.
It was also recently reported that
violations of health ministry guidelines were committed over the Purim holiday, causing concern among health officials that there will be an increase in infection in the coming weeks.
Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman contributed to this report. 