Life in the UK will start getting back to normal ‘some time after Easter’, according to Matt Hancock.
Speaking upon hearing the Oxford vaccine candidate has been demonstrated to be up to 90% effective, the health secretary stressed the ‘bulk’ of the population will need to be immunised before Covid rules can be eased significantly.
He told BBC Breakfast this morning the majority of people will be vaccinated in the spring, meaning things should return to some sense of normality after Easter.
The government has pre-ordered 100million doses of the Oxford vaccine, which is much cheaper and easier to store than the jabs made by Pfizer and Moderna.
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Based on a trial of 20,000 people, it’s been shown to be between 70% and 90% effective.
Giving a timescale for the vaccine’s rollout, Mr Hancock said the ‘bulk’ will be in the new year, with some getting the vaccine before Christmas.
‘It is subject to that regulatory approval and I really stress that because the medicines regulator, it’s called the MHRA, is independent, they’re rigorous, they’re one of the best regulators in the world,’ he told BBC Breakfast.
‘They will be very, very careful to ensure that they look at all the data to make sure that this is safe. Subject to that approval, we hope to be able to start vaccinating next month.
‘The bulk of the vaccine rollout programme will be in January, February, March, and we hope that sometime after Easter things will be able to start to get back to normal.’
It comes as the government is expected to outline its plan to get the country through the winter until mass vaccination programmes can start in earnest.
An announcement is expected later around what the new tiered system will look like post-lockdown and how families will be able to celebrate Christmas together.
Health bosses are concerned people may start to relax in the knowledge that the vaccine is around the corner, potentially pushing up case numbers again before enough people have been immunised.
Speaking about the post-lockdown plan for England Mr Hancock said the tiered system will ‘have to be stronger’ than it was previously.
‘The number of cases is now clearly starting to fall across the whole of the UK,’ he said.
‘In England, we come to the end of the lockdown as you know on December 2, and so we do think that we can replace the lockdown with a tiered system.
‘But the tiered system, whilst lighter than lockdown, will have to be stronger than the previous tiers that were in place.’
Asked if there will be a fourth tier, Mr Hancock said: ‘No, three tiers, but the top tier, tier three, will have to be stronger than the previous tier three.’
New tiered rules are likely to be accompanied by more mass testing programmes, similar to those seen recently in Liverpool.
Anyone who wanted to be tested was given a test, leading to large numbers of asymptomatic cases being diagnosed.
Mr Hancock said cases in Liverpool, which had been the worst affected city in the UK, have been brought down ‘really quite remarkably’ following the rollout.
He said: ‘In Liverpool, cases are down by more than two-thirds in the last few weeks.
‘And this is a combination, of course, of those restrictions that have been in place, but also in Liverpool we put in mass testing.
‘They’ve tested over 200,000 people of the just over half a million who live in Liverpool. And they’ve found a load more people who were asymptomatic, didn’t know that they had a problem, didn’t know they have the virus.
‘And the combination of the mass testing, and the measures in Liverpool, have brought the cases down really quite remarkably, much faster than I would have thought was possible.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/23/life-could-start-returning-to-normal-after-easter-says-matt-hancock-13638233/