Another lockdown in Scotland could be "unavoidable" due to the hasty return of full capacity football and festival crowds, an expert has predicted.
Immunology expert Professor Denis Kinane has said if the vaccine passport scheme fails to reduce cases of coronavirus in Scotland, then cases may surge with large scale events set to keep pressing on with their plans.
Speaking in an interview with The Times, he said a revised plan should be set out to help large scale events return for good.
This would be done by cutting back on the capacity of crowds and slowly raising the number of people in attendance according to the rates of infection.
READ MORE: Scotland's vaccine passport scheme set to come into force from October 1
He said: “You’ve got this scenario where you say we can bring back football crowds or TRNSMT festival and we can have these concerts with people who have been double-vaccinated. It’s an interesting one because I honestly think we might be stepping too quickly.
“This week we’ve had 769 deaths in the UK. You can shrug and say that’s a lot less than it was, but it’s still a lot of people dying.
"I think we should ease into this and see if we can keep the numbers down at a manageable level. If we go quickly now, we’re going to end up in another lockdown, there’s no way to avoid it."
Prof Kinane added: “We’ve done extremely well as a country in terms of getting people vaccinated. We’ve got to be really clear about what vaccination means, though. What it means is that you’re unlikely to die from Covid and that’s about it. You’re unlikely to get very ill although there are people getting ill."
The expert, who is the co-founder of a Covid screening service Cignpost Diagnostics, said he believes that herd immunity is "a big fallacy", and fears a similar situation to the highly vaccinated Israel could be mirrored in Scotland.
He added: “[Herd immunity] for covid is an elusive concept. We’ve just got to rid ourselves of the idea that we’re going to get some immunity.
"What that means in essence is that people who are vaccinated will still be able to transmit the virus and will still be able to contract the virus.
“My concern is — look at Israel, who have some of the highest vaccination rates in the world – they’re seeing a further surge and had to impose a new lockdown.
"This idea that we’re getting some protection in terms of transmission of infection from the vaccination is a fallacy. The reality is that what it’s doing is massively protecting us from getting seriously ill and that’s been its major success.”
TRNSMT festival-goers had to provide proof of a negative lateral flow test in order to gain entry to the weekend event.
Vaccine passports in Scotland are set to be introduced on October 1.
The passports will apply to nightclubs, sexual entertainment venues, live unseated indoor events of 500 people or more, live outdoor unseated events with more than 4,000 in the audience and all events with more than 10,000 attending.
However, the Scottish Government is still working to finalise a definition of "nightclubs".
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