PM’s plea over ‘gatherings’ in people’s homes
Johnson to host a summit on vaccines
BORIS JOHNSON will today ask world leaders to unite in the fight against disease while hosting a global vaccine summit, as he urged the British public not to break coronavirus restrictions by moving gatherings indoors.
The summit, which will be opened by the Prime Minister today, will seek to raise £6bn to immunise 300m children within five years and has been dubbed by Mr Johnson as “the most essential shared endeavour of our lifetimes”.
Representatives from 50 countries are expected to join the virtual summit which comes against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic.
If the funding target is met, it is hoped 300m children in the world’s poorest nations could be vaccinated against diseases like polio, diphtheria and measles by 2025.
By vaccinating the children against those diseases, it is hoped it will alleviate the extra pressure heaped on health systems by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Health experts have warned that if the virus is left to spread in developing countries, this could lead to future waves of infection reaching the UK.
The UK has pledged £1.65bn of funding for the project over the next five years.
It comes amid fears the change in the weather could see the public move gatherings inside, increasing the coronavirus risk.
The Prime Minister told the daily Downing Street briefing yesterday: “I want to stress one final point which may be relevant today as the weather threatens, I think, to take a turn for the worse.
“Some of you may be tempted to move the gatherings you’ve been enjoying outdoors indoors out of the rain. I really urge you – don’t do that.
“We relaxed the rules on meeting outside for a very specific reason because the evidence shows the risks of transmission are much lower outdoors.
“And the risks of passing on the virus are significantly higher indoors which is why gatherings inside other people’s homes are still prohibited.
“Breaking these rules now could undermine and reverse all the progress that we’ve made together. I have no doubt that won’t happen.”
Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance added there were examples internationally of new outbreaks of coronavirus since countries were moving towards easing their lockdowns.
His comment came after a member of the public asked why the Government was warning of a possible second wave of infections when countries like Spain had not seen such an occurrence after relaxing its rules.
Sir Patrick said: “It is the case that if you look in other countries, they are beginning to see outbreaks as measures are relaxed.
“That is true – we’ve seen outbreaks reported in South Korea, there have been outbreaks reported in parts of Germany as measures have relaxed.
“So what has happened is the first peak has been suppressed and as the measures are released there is a danger that that comes back.
“There is also a risk that there is a second peak that comes as a wave goes across the world, so we are not out of this yet.
“It is good news that, as measures are being relaxed, people are generally seeing numbers continuing to go down.
“That is obviously what we would hope for here as the steps that are being taken cautiously, and we will be measuring to see numbers continuing to go down.”
He said there could be 8,000 new cases a day in the UK, and the so-called R rate of infection was still close to one, which meant numbers were not dropping fast.