Don’t abandon masks, social distancing after getting vaccine: Fauci

Washington, Nov 16 : America’s top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has urged citizens not to abandon masks and social distancing even after a vaccine against the novel coronavirus was available to all.
He made the remarks during a CNN interview on Sunday when asked if people could go back to their normal lives once the vaccine was available, reports The Hill news magazine.
In response, Fauci said: “I would recommend that that is not the case. I would recommend you have an added area of protection.
“Obviously, with a 90-plus percent effective vaccine, you could feel much more confident. But I would recommend to people to not abandon all public health measures just because you have been vaccinated, because even though, for the general population, it might be 90 to 95 per cent effective, you don’t necessarily know, for you, how effective it is.” The US is working with a portfolio of six vaccines, using three different platform technologies and two candidates from each platform: messenger RNA, live viral vectors and recombinant protein.
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines use the messenger RNA platform, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University are on the live vector path while Novavax and Sanofi/ GlaxoSmithKline are building out their vaccine candidates on the recombinant protein platform.