Coronavirus Vaccine — House of Lords, 2020-12-03
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am enormously grateful for that large number of thoughtful and nuanced questions, and I will try to cover as much ground as I possibly can I start by supporting the noble Baronesses’ tribute to the MHRA. It has played a complete blinder. It has quietly worked since January for this very moment. It has thrown an enormous amount of expertise, diligence and professionalism at the extremely challenging task of managing this vaccine authorisation, and it is to its massive credit that it has landed with an enormous amount of confidence and has been greeted so well The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, asked about EU law and exactly where we stand in terms of Brexit. She is exactly right that this authorisation was done under the terms of European law, and the carve-out that we took was indeed completely within the realms of European law. I pay tribute to the international collaboration that lay behind this vaccine—among the inventors, with their Turkish-German background, with the contributions of the German company that founded the vaccine and of the Americans, who have marketed and distributed it. In fact, the collaboration behind it has been global However, there is something British about it as well. In Britain, we have a long-standing commitment to research into infectious diseases, and that has created an enormously strong framework and foundation for the work that we have done. At universities such as Oxford, where the Jenner Institute is based, and Imperial, we have established a terrific international reputation for our work on infectious diseases. The regulator, the MHRA, has gone about its work with an enormous amount of confidence and expertise. That has meant that it has been able to handle, in parallel, the clinical trials for efficacy and the reviews for safety. It analysed huge amounts of data in parallel in real time, so that it could turn around the authorisation promptly and confidently when presented with the final data The commercial effectiveness of the Vaccine Taskforce has been phenomenal. It has secured contracts for a large number of vaccines, which has meant that manufacturing has been able to take place in advance, and delivery of the vaccine, which is happening as we speak, is able to take place promptly. On the enormous amount of collaboration on the deployment of the vaccine, about which the noble Baroness asked, I pay tribute to colleagues in the NHS, NHSD, the military, and those in social care and logistics. There has been enormous collaboration across the piece The noble Baroness asked exactly what figures there are for delivery and when it is scheduled to take place. I am afraid that I cannot give the precise schedule, but I reassure her that, as soon as we know the precise timetable, we will publish it to give the confidence and reassurance to the public that, quite reasonably, they would like The noble Baroness is entirely right that social care is our number one priority. The prioritisation list from the JCVI is crystal clear. It also presents a big challenge because, as she knows, the Pfizer vaccine requires cold storage. It comes in units of more than 100 vials. We do not want to waste this extremely valuable vaccine, so we are having to work closely with social care colleagues and the NHS to ensure that workers and those in social care can receive it. That will be difficult, and I do not doubt that there will be problems, particularly, as the noble Baroness pointed out, with getting the vaccine to small units of social care. However, I reassure her that colleagues are working on that night and day and are very focused on delivering a solution The noble Baroness asked whether those who take the vaccine will need to isolate. Yes, they will, and that will have to continue for a while. The truth is that we do not know whether taking the vaccine will reduce transmissibility. Our suspicion is that it will, but until we have the clinical evidence that that is the case, we have to be pragmatic and ensure the safety of the public. However, we are working extremely hard on trying to resolve that issue, and I reassure the noble Baroness, care home managers and those who live and work in social care that they are at the top of the priority list The noble Baroness also asked me about delivery of the vaccine from Belgium. I reassure her that there are numerous fallback plans for all kinds of scenarios and that the transport arrangements for this valuable cargo have been thought through incredibly carefully The intention is not to roll out mass testing or community testing in every single local authority before Christmas. We are working with those local authorities that have stepped forward and that either are the most keen or have the highest infection rates, to ensure that the partnerships that we have in place develop really good best practice and that those directors of public health who are the most energetic have the resources they need to develop new models. That work is happening at pace and we get updates on it every day. It promises to be an extremely effective model for cutting the chain of transmission I pay particular tribute to universities, which have worked extremely closely with both the Department for Education and the department of health to ensure that there is community testing on campus, so that the migration home before Christmas is done safely and effectively The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, is entirely right that apparently it is not very difficult to learn how to give an injection. I have been offered a training course, but I am not sure that anyone would actually want an injection from me. However, I reassure her that we have mobilised an enormous army of people to administer the vaccine. That includes those existing in the NHS and social care as well as pharmacists, who have stepped up massively and to whom we are very grateful, and it will include the return to service of many retired healthcare professionals, to whom we are enormously grateful As the noble Baroness pointed out, there is a pipeline of vaccines coming through, not least the British one developed at Oxford University in collaboration with AstraZeneca. I cannot give her a schedule on precisely when all of those will be delivered, but it is extremely promising that there are between half a dozen and a dozen vaccines on their way. It serves as an indication of how science has ridden to the rescue to help us out of this awful pandemic Regarding those who are either sceptical or refusing a vaccine, we are reassured that concerns about the vaccine are at present relatively low. We are engaging with anyone who has a concern about the vaccine with respect and in a spirit of dialogue to try to present the evidence in a transparent and reassuring way. That approach seems to have paid dividends, and I am encouraged that the British public will be stepping forward for the vaccine in very large numbers I reassure the noble Baroness that we have a massive social media campaign to engage the public. I pay tribute to the media teams in the department and the Cabinet Office, who have worked incredibly hard throughout the entire pandemic and have handled literally dozens of campaigns, often at pace, with enormous creativity and diligence—and have got sign-off from Ministers, which is no mean feat at times—under difficult circumstances. They deserve all our thanks and praise Lastly, on the noble Baroness’s quite important questions about isolation, she is absolutely right: isolation is key. There is no point in testing and tracing if you do not isolate. However, the surveys that she refers to are fragmented. I am not sure if some of the simple surveys actually tell the whole truth. In honesty, people’s response to isolation is probably more subtle than simple binary questions would suggest. We are beginning to understand that many who are isolating, although they may not have completely obeyed every strict command in the isolation protocols, have massively changed their behaviours, and we are looking at ways of supporting those people through civic and financial support and through our messaging to ensure that the isolation protocols are as effective as possible.