Vaccine may not be ready ‘for another year’
England’s Chief Medical Officer contradicts PM’s suggestions of a return to normality by end of 2020
THE Chief Medical Officer, has warned that it is not certain there will be a vaccine to deal with coronavirus until the winter of 2021.
Prof Chris Whitty will today tell the public it could take another year before a safe vaccine is developed and ready for widespread distribution.
He says he would be “surprised” if an effective vaccine that could be used for most of the population would be ready before this Christmas.
His words of warning are in direct contrast to those of Boris Johnson, who has raised the prospect that the country would be able to return to normal by the end of the year.
Prof Whitty said: “I would obviously be delighted if it came earlier rather than later but I’d be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of winter, certainly before this side of Christmas.
“I think it is unlikely we will have a vaccine that is highly effective and ready to deploy at scale this winter, meaning 2020-21. I think there is a reasonable chance that we will have vaccines, not a certainty, in the period before the following winter of 2021-22.”
During an interview to be broadcast today, the Chief Medical Officer for England explained that scientists have to make sure a vaccine, even if developed quickly, is safe, and that takes time.
“A lot of people are doing a huge amount scientifically, logistically to… try and see if we can get a vaccine at extraordinarily fast speed,” he said.
“But we have to check it works and we have to make sure it’s safe and these things do take time.”
Prof Whitty said it was becoming increasingly clear that young people were behind much of the recent increase in Covid infections in areas such as Oldham, Pendle, Blackburn and other parts of the North West, where new tougher restrictions were introduced from yesterday. Elsewhere, Birmingham has been added to the government’s watch list, and Northampton named an “area of intervention”. Prof Whitty said:
“Certainly what we’ve seen countries is that it spreads younger people and then it move up the age bands.
“Younger people, for example, who’ve got friends that work in care homes or work in healthcare settings, then it starts to lead to cases in people who are much more vulnerable and that’s the point where you start to see significant, long-term health implications and sometimes sadly deaths...
“If that happens, as the surge happens, it will move up the age groups to people who have got pre-existing health conditions and you would go back to seeing a situation where the numbers of people going to hospital are increasing and the numbers of people subsequently, sadly, dying increasing.”
It came as Prof Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said conavirus will be present “forever” and people are likely to need regular vaccinations against it.
He told BBC Radio 4’s programme that the pandemic would be controlled by “global vaccination” but that it was not “going to be a disease like smallpox which could be eradicated by vaccination”.
“This is a virus that is going to be with us forever in some form or another... So, a bit like flu – people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals.”