Life after COVID vaccines hasn’t changed much for most Brits according to new data from the Office of National Statistics.
The survey questioned more than three thousand double-jabbed people on four behaviours: maintaining social distancing, going shopping, seeing people they don’t live with and using public transport.
For each activity around 70-80% of respondents said having two vaccines did not change their behaviour following their vaccination.
The behaviour which changed the least was ‘Maintaining social distancing’ which saw 83% respondents, un-tempted by the protection of the jab, say their habits were unchanged.
On the other end of the scale, the behaviour which saw the most change was ‘Seeing friends you don’t live with’ which had a substantially lower 68% people continuing to do it at the same level and 27% doing it more often.
However on the whole, people have stuck with government guidance and not changed their life after COVID vaccines. We spoke to residents to find out their thoughts on the lack of change.
Catherine Jeffries, a 25-year-old teacher, said: “That doesn’t surprise me. The media, government and general adverts are still targeting COVID and emphasising the dangers of it. So it doesn’t surprise me that people are the same and still erring on the side of caution.
“As a teacher I’m much more aware of the fact that children are being hit hard by the delta variant in particular, so I’m still very wary as to who I see and where I go even though I’ve had both vaccines.”
However Croydon resident Nicola Hawes, 66, said: “I am surprised because I personally feel a lot more confident going out now because of the vaccines.”
Kimi Cherrie-Rees, a 22-year-old from Croydon, said: “Having had both jabs, it’s really helped my anxiety going out as a vulnerable person, especially as I know most the people around me are also vaccinated.”
With the government’s announcement this week of the lifting of restrictions on 19th July, it will be interesting to see if people’s behaviour still continue or we see more of a change.
A 29-year-old man who did not want to be identified gave his view on the announcement.
He said: “It’s incredibly unfair that all the young people had to go into lockdown to protect the old people. But now the old people will get to travel and have fun because they are double jabbed while young people won’t because they were offered their first jab significantly later.”
