NEW JAB POLICY WILL SAVE MANY LIVES
As first boxes of Oxford vaccine arrive in hospit als, Brit ain’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer assures the nation...
THE scientist leading the UK coronavirus vaccination programme has defended the decision to extend the gap between the two doses, insisting it is ‘the way we save lives’.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam says waiting 12 weeks between jabs rather than the original three will protect those most at risk of dying from Covid-19, adding that the focus must be ‘to deliver first vaccine doses to as many people, in the shortest possible timeframe’. As the first supplies of the Oxford vaccine arrived in the UK yesterday, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer – who has become the trusted face of Downing Street press conferences during the crisis – predicts ‘tens of millions
of doses’ will be available by the end of March.
A senior Government source last night said that the 15 million jabs needed to protect those most at risk could be delivered by mid-March. Vaccinating that vulnerable group is seen as crucial in releasing Britain from the crippling effects of lockdown.
Writing exclusively in The Mail on Sunday, Prof Van-Tam rejects criticism that changing the period between the two doses of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines i s confusing and potentially dangerous.
‘Simply put, every time we vaccinate someone a second time, we are not vaccinating someone else for the first time,’ he says. ‘It means we are missing an opportunity to greatly reduce the chances of the most
Ministers vow to ‘step on the gas’ this week
vulnerable people getti ng severely ill from Covid-19.’
In his article for this newspaper, Prof Van- Tam says the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has found the Pfizer vaccine to be 89 per cent effective against Covid- 19 from between 15 and 21 days after the first dose.
That rises to 95 per cent after a second dose, but he argues that extra six per cent comes at the cost of halving the number who can get a large degree of immunity from a single jab.
He adds: ‘If a family has two elderly grandparents and there are two vaccines available, it is better to give both 89 per cent protection than to give one 95 per cent protection with two quick doses, and the other grandparent no protection at all. The virus is unfortunately spreading fast, and this is a race against time.
‘My mum, as well as you or your older loved ones, may be affected by this decision, but it is still the right thing to do for the nation as a whole.’ His intervention came as:
• Boris Johnson hailed the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine as ‘a triumph of British science’;
• Health Secretary Matt Hancock said more than a million shots had so far been administered, with a fifth of those aged over 80 already given their first dose;
• Government sources said Ministers planned to ‘step on the gas’ by delivering up to 1.5 million vaccines this week and reach the 2 million-a-week target by February;
• The Armed Forces are to deploy 150 mobile vaccination teams, including some on helicopters, to help deliver jabs as part of what has been dubbed ‘Operation Delta Force’;
• A record 57,725 new infections were recorded yesterday, up from 35,691 a week ago, and a further 445 deaths were reported, almost double the death toll from last Saturday;
• Professor Andrew Goddard, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, warned the number of people in hospital was currently ‘mild’ compared to what he expects the NHS to face this week;
• The stand-off over schools reopening intensified, with unions telling primary teachers it is unsafe to return to work this week, and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, using a Mail on Sunday article to call on staff to ‘move heaven and earth to get children back to the classroom’;
• German firm BioNTech said the EU had failed to order more doses of the vaccine it developed with Pfizer, as it emerged France had only delivered 352 jabs after European regulators were slow to approve its use.
In Britain, medics will start using the initial 530,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab from tomorrow. The first will be administered at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
By the end of the week, vaccines will be available at 160 hospital sites and 800 GP surgeries. Community pharmacies will also be used to deliver jabs.
The programme cannot be rolled out fast enough for crisis-hit schools and hospitals. Half of the major hospital trusts in England are dealing with more Covid-19 patients than they were at the peak of the first wave in April, and 29 out of 39 NHS Trusts have postponed most elective surgery.
Meanwhile, Ministers are considering proposals to make teachers a higher priority for vaccines in a bid to end the schools stand-off.
More Left-wing councils yesterday said they would not allow classrooms to reopen, while the row created fresh splits within Labour, with Corbyni st a MPs backing the unions, but party leader Sir Keir Starmer failing to endorse their stance.
The Government last week changed its policy on administering a second jab following advice from the JCVI supported by Chief Medical Officers across the UK.
However, the British Medical Association echoed the concern of some family doctors that the move was misguided. On Friday, Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the BMA’s GP committee, said: ‘The existing commitment made to these patients by the NHS and local clinicians should be respected.
‘ If GPs decide to honour these booked appointments in January, the BMA will support them.’
Welcoming the arrival of the first batch of Oxford vaccines, Mr Johnson said: ‘ We know there are challenges still ahead of us over the coming weeks and months, but I’m confident this is the year we will defeat coronavirus and start building back better.’
NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens added: ‘The vaccination programme – the biggest in NHS history – has got off to a strong start, and by New Year’s Day we’d been able to vaccinate more people than the rest of Europe combined. Now we have a second, more versatile, jab in our armoury.’
Meanwhile, security agencies have warned Ministers that disinformation about the 12week gap between jabs could be used by Britain’s enemies to create ‘panic’.
One Government source said: ‘All the usual suspects will be trying to sow doubt.’
‘We’ve given more jabs than the rest of Europe’
THIS newspaper has been highly critical of much of the Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.
We have attacked its failure to provide adequate personal protection equipment at the st art of t he outbreak. We strongly criticised its inability to protect lives in care homes. We were among the first to point out that lockdowns can do more harm than good. And we have repeatedly called for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to listen to a wider selection of expert voices than those on the official Sage committee.
But we have never been negative for the sake of it. Our interventions have been intended to ensure that the effort to preserve public health was as successful as possible. And this is very much reflected in our view of the vaccine.
In the midst of a desert of disappointment and restriction, this has been one piece of undiluted good news – a huge scientific triumph, and much of it a British one. If this immunisation can be given as soon as possible to the most vulnerable in our society, then the whole apparatus of lockdown, curfew and closure can be dismantled and we can seize back our normal lives.
Among other things, we can take full advantage of the freedom to trade with the world, restored to us by Brexit. It is a great pity that the Covid crisis has overshadowed this pivotal moment of recovered liberty and i ndependence, and the s ooner we can enjoy t hat moment, the better. Yet much of the debate around the vaccine, and how it is to be given, has turned sour. In some quarters there seems to be a relentless determination to find and spread bad news about it, especially in the argument about how the jabs should be shared among the population.
Surely, given the power of the first dose to protect those who have had it, it makes great sense to ask our older citizens to accept a longer delay between the first and the second inoculation, so that more people can be covered more quickly? It is ridiculous and rather insulting to older men and women, full of experience of life and well used to the need to be patient, to assume that they cannot cope with a lengthier gap between the first jab and the second.
Why then the great palaver over this idea, as if it was a serious blow to the health of the country, rather than a sensible attempt to do most good in the shortest time?
Of course a free society should encourage criticism of mistakes and failures, or how are we to avoid them in future?
But that is not a licence for relentless negativity. Even during the greatest military triumph in our history, the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944, many things went wrong. Gliders crashed, parachutists were dropped in the wrong place, landing craft sank, tanks failed to make it to shore. But that was not the story of the day. The story of the day – quite rightly – was that in an exercise of great bravery, organisation and discipline, a ruthless enemy had been dealt a blow from which it would never recover.
In a smaller but still important way, that is where we now stand. After gloomy months of disease, isolation, loss of liberty, economic damage, closed schools, t ravel bans and separation, there is now at last hope that we can win back what we lost, and rebuild our lives. That is what matters, above all.