It's Starting To Look Like a 'No-Brainer'?

Spiegelhalter and Masters (Winton Centre Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society) have presented data on the effects of the 2 Covid-19 vaccines, employed in the UK, on viral transmission (https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/may/02/vaccinated-people-less-likely-to-pass-covid-on). A first jab of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, reduced infections by Sars-CoV-2 by about 65% in a sample of 370,000 subjects (study carried out by Oxford University and the Office for National Statistics). This is roughly the same as having had a prior infection by the virus. Public Health England carried out another study on more than 500,000 English households. It found that unvaccinated, infected people transmitted the virus to 10% of their household. The figure for vaccinated but infected people, was around 6%. Putting the two studies together, Spiegelhalter and Masters suggest that, for every 6 people infected by unvaccinated housemates, only 1 person would get the virus from counterparts who had received a vaccine. This is presumably partly because vaccinated people, unlucky enough to get infected, have milder symptoms and carry a lower viral load. So, getting vaccinated, protects the people around you (as well as yourself). There has been debate in the UK, about whether it should be mandatory for Care Home workers (looking after vulnerable people) to have the jab. The data suggests it would be ill-advised to make it optional? Similar considerations may also apply to other categories of worker (doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, members of the armed forces and police?), coming into close contact with large groups of people.