DON’T SCREW IT UP!
■ EXPERT’S WARNING AS No.10 ORDERS A SEVEN-DAY-A-WEEK ROLLOUT OF VACCINE ■ JABS TO START FROM DECEMBER IN RACE TO GET ‘LIFE BACK TO NORMAL’ BY EASTER
LIFE could be ‘back to normal by Easter’ providing ministers don’t ‘screw up’ delivering the coronavirus vaccine, one of the world’s top immunology experts told MPs yesterday.
Sir John Bell, a member of the government’s vaccine task force, said two other teams could follow Pfizer in producing a jab for front-line workers and the vulnerable before Christmas.
And he told the Commons science committee there was a ‘70 to 80 per cent chance’ the pandemic could be over by spring. ‘That’s provided they (the government) don’t screw up the distribution of the vaccine,’ he said. ‘That’s not my job but, providing they don’t screw that up, it will all be fine.’ The University of Oxford professor delivered his verdict after Pfizer said it had found ‘no serious side-effects’ from its vaccine and that it was ‘90 percent effective’. Health secretary Matt Hancock was challenged over whether the government was up to the task of delivering the vaccine considering its Covid-19 track record. ‘The rollout of test and trace and the early procurement of PPE wasn’t as smooth as we might have hoped,’ said shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth. ‘So what is the plan?’ Mr Hancock replied that the seven-day-aweek operation, due to start next month, would be based on ‘tried and tested plans for flu which we deploy every autumn’. He added: ‘The logistics are complex, the uncertainties are real, and the scale of the job is vast. But I know that the NHS will be up to the task. I know they will rise to this challenge... to inject hope into millions of arms this winter.’
The UK has ordered 10million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and Mr Hancock has put the NHS on standby to start administering them
at the start of December. But the drug needs to be kept at minus 70C – which rules out storing it at most hospitals, pharmacies or GP surgeries.
Mr Hancock spoke as Baroness Dido Harding, head of the £12billion Test and Trace programme, defended its performance after the government’s Sage committee of scientific advisers said it was having a ‘marginal effect’. The former TalkTalk boss told MPs testing capacity had increased 17-fold since the start of August and she had ‘built something the size of Asda in five months’.
Deaths from coronavirus are now at their highest level since the start of June, accounting for 12 per cent of all fatalities, according to the Office for National Statistics. A total of 1,379 deaths were recorded across England and Wales in the seven days to October 30. The toll increased by 532 yesterday – the highest daily figure since May. The number of cases also rose, from 20,018 to 20,412.
Mr Hancock told MPs that, after a successful trial in Liverpool, mass testing will be rolled out across 67 local authority areas using kits that can deliver results in just 15 minutes.
‘Each will get the capacity to test ten per cent of their population every week,’ he said. ‘Testing provides confidence and it is that confidence that will help get Britain back on her feet.’ He said twice-a-week testing will also be introduced for front-line NHS staff – but insisted that calls for relatives of care home residents to be prioritised are up to local authorities.
Sir John Bell said the current 14-day isolation period deterred people from getting tested, and said that mass testing should allow people to be given ‘freedom passes’.
He told MPs: ‘We are living in a world where we need to reopen society. At the moment we don’t have that structure because the whole philosophy has been, “Let’s beat them up with a stick”, rather than, “Let’s give them a carrot”.’
Meanwhile, universities have been told to stop face-to-face teaching by early December so students can return home and continue studies online.