The Times - UK (2020-12-03)

12 2GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times

News

ters and their loved ones and let them

take it first, and then get all the luvvies,

the icons of popular culture out on the

airwaves singing its praises.”

The YouGov poll also found 27 per

cent of Brits were very confident the

Pfizer/Biontech vaccine was safe and 43

per cent fairly confident. However,

11 per cent were not very confident, 9

per cent said they were not confident at

all, and 44 per cent opposed making the

vaccination compulsory in law.

By midday Thalidomide was trend-

ing on Twitter as antivax activists

sought to discredit the newly approved

vaccine. Among those arguing against

its use was Gerard Batten, a former

Ukip leader, who claimed it could cause

infertility, something for which there is

no evidence.

The claim appears to stem from a pe-

tition submitted to the European Medi-

cines Agency by two doctors and cam-

paigners against lockdown who have

both previously claimed the pandemic

either does not exist or is already over.

Their claims about the vaccine were de-

scribed as lacking in evidence, “hard to

follow and tenuous” by Professor Dan-

ny Altmann, head of an immunology

lab at Imperial College London.

Take the medicine, letters, page 36

It had been a long time since Bob

Underhill, 84, was last able to sit and

hold hands with his wife — until

yesterday when the pair were reunited

thanks to a coronavirus test that can

deliver results within 30 minutes.

Patricia Underhill, 82, has Alzheim-

er’s and is a resident at the Chiswick

Nursing Centre, west London. The care

home has swiftly implemented a

testing regime to allow relatives to visit

loved ones with physical contact

allowed and it has opened its doors to

guests.

Theresa Snelling has waited weeks to

be hugged by her daughter as fears of

infection meant that all visits were

carried out under strict social distanc-

ing rules. Yesterday they could embrace

safely in the knowledge that neither

risked passing on Covid-19.

Mrs Snelling is also a resident at the

Chiswick Nursing Centre, the first care

home in Greater London to provide

rapid coronavirus tests for visitors.

The swab test, which is easily

administered by specially trained

healthcare staff, enabled four visitors to

enter the home yesterday and spend

much-needed close contact time with

their loved ones.

With results given in 30 minutes, the

home’s bosses hope that the technology

Pregnant women or those trying for a
child should not be given the corona-
virus jab, health officials said yesterday.
The Pfizer/Biontech vaccine has not
been tested in pregnant women, as is
common for most drugs, and so should
not be used until more data is available,
the Joint Committee on Vaccines and
Immunisation (JCVI) said.
In new guidance, it said: “Women
should be advised not to come forward
for vaccination if they may be pregnant

Pregnant women to miss out on vaccine until more trials

or are planning a pregnancy within

three months of the first dose.”

The same was true for children in

almost all cases, it advised. The vaccine

trials that the Medicines and Health-

care products Regulatory Agency ap-

proval is based on did not have any par-

ticipants younger than 12.

The JCVI guidance said: “As trials in

children and pregnant women are

completed, we will also gain a better

understanding of the safety and

effectiveness of the vaccines in these

persons.” At a briefing yesterday, Pfizer

scientists said there was a pre-clinical

study running on the virus’s teratogen-

icity — whether it causes any abnor-

malities in unborn babies — but they

echoed the committee’s decision that

it should not be used in pregnant

women yet.

The JCVI has said that if any woman

was inadvertently given the vaccine

while pregnant, perhaps because she

did not realise she was expecting, this

did not mean she should be advised to

abort the pregnancy. Any such cases

will form part of a Public Health En-

gland surveillance programme. The

JCVI said there was “very limited data

on vaccination in adolescents, with no

data on vaccination in younger child-

ren, at this time”.

Officials advised therefore that “only

those children at very high risk of expo-

sure and serious outcomes, such as old-

er children with severe neuro disabili-

ties that require residential care, should

be offered vaccination”.

Pfizer said it hoped to win approval to

vaccinate children after forthcoming

trials.

Kat Lay

News Coronavirus

Theresa Snelling hugs her daughter

First kiss as

Katie Gibbons

The health secretary has volunteered
to be vaccinated live on television to
prove that the coronavirus jab is safe.
Matt Hancock made his offer as You-
Gov polling found that a fifth of Britons
were not confident at all or not very
confident that the Pfizer/Biontech vac-
cine was safe and antivaxers took aim at
the newly approved drug.
Last night Jonathan Van-Tam, the
deputy chief medical officer for En-
gland, told Britons that they needed to
take the vaccination to get rid of restric-
tions. He said: “Everyone wants social
distancing to come to an end, we’re fed
up with it. Nobody wants to see the
damage they do. But if you want that
dream to come true as quickly as it can
come true, then you have to take the
vaccine when it’s offered to you. Low
uptake will almost certainly make re-
strictions last longer.”
Earlier, during a television appear-
ance, it was suggested that Mr Hancock
could lead the way with an injection
broadcast to the nation.
Piers Morgan, the presenter of ITV’s
Good Morning Britain, said: “I’ll come to
where you are any time next week if we
can do this. Let’s do it together, live on
air. It would be powerful, it would send
the right message.”
Mr Hancock said: “Well, we’d have to
get that approved because, of course,
there is a prioritisation according to
clinical need and, thankfully, as a
healthy, middle-aged man, you’re not at
the top of the prioritisation. But if we
can get that approved and if people
think that’s reasonable then I’m up for
doing that because once the MHRA
has approved a vaccine — they only do
that if it is safe. And so, if that can help
anybody else, persuade anybody else
that they should take the vaccine then I
think it’s worth it.”
A snap YouGov poll found that the
public overwhelmingly supported the
idea, with 66 per cent in favour against
only 12 per cent who opposed it.
Allegra Stratton, Boris John-
son’s press secretary, suggested
the prime minister might also be
prepared to be vaccinated against
coronavirus live on television —
but only if it did not prevent
someone more in need of
a jab from receiving one.
Ms Stratton told report-
ers: “We all know the
character of the prime
minister. I don’t
think it would be
something that he
would rule out but
what we also know is that he
wouldn’t want to take a jab that

should be for somebody who is ex-

tremely vulnerable and who

should be getting it before him.”

In the Commons on Tuesday

Sir Desmond Swayne, a

former international de-

velopment minister,

said: “The way to per-

suade people to have a

vaccine is to line up

the entire govern-

ment and its minis-

Hancock: I’ll take jab on

TV to combat antivaxers

Kat Lay Health Editor
Emma Yeomans

The national picture

There were 16,170 new cases reported

yesterday, bringing the total to 1,659,

or 24.8 for every 1,000 people

How many people have Covid-19?

There are 15,436 patients in hospital

being treated. 1,417 patients are on

ventilators. An additional 1,191 patients

were admitted yesterday, down 11.7 per

cent in the past seven days

How many people are in hospital?

Wave one began Mar 23, wave two began Sep 23

*Data published Dec 1 and is the most recent available

There were 648 deaths reported

yesterday, bringing the rolling

seven-day average of deaths to 453.

This compares with 416 a fortnight ago

How many people have died?

This is now at 48 per cent of its peak in

April. Last week Covid accounted for

21.5 per cent of all deaths in England

and Wales*

The rolling seven-day average

Deaths Seven-day average

Wave

two

Wave one

Days

800

1,

600

400

200

0

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Hospital admissionsSeven-day average

Wave one began Mar 23, wave two began Sep 23

Days

Wave two

Wave one

020406080100120140160180

0

1,

2,

3,

Seven-day

average

0

10,

20,

30,

Sep Oct Nov

National

R number

0.9 to 1

-18% from

7 days ago

Daily cases

(based on 7-day

moving average) average)

1796

Edward Jenner, right,

gave the first vaccine to

James Phipps, aged

eight, on May 14, 1796

using matter from a

cowpox sore on Sarah

Nelmes, a milkmaid. His

paper was rejected by

the Royal Society but

within a few years he

had won over enough

doctors and by 1800 his

smallpox vaccination

was popular and

spreading into Europe.

1879

Louis Pasteur created a

laboratory-developed

vaccine for chicken

cholera — in error. His

assistant forgot to inject

the chickens with fresh

bacterial cultures before

a holiday. When he

returned a month later,

he carried out the

injections with the old

culture, and the

chickens survived fatal

disease. Pasteur gave

them fresh bacteria and

they did not become ill.

1955

The Salk polio virus

vaccine was deemed

successful a little over a

year after a huge trial

began. It was licensed in

the US on the same day,

and by 1960 polio rates

across the country had

dropped by 90 per cent.

1956

One of Elvis Presley’s

lesser-known live

performances came in

October 1956, when he

received a polio shot on

television. Rates of polio

vaccination were

slumping among

teenagers, who were

vulnerable to the

disease, so celebrities

were enlisted to get the

message out.

1977

Ali Maalin, a Somalian

cook, became the last

person to contract

smallpox in the wild. He

survived and became

an advocate for

vaccination. A British

woman contracted it

from a lab studying the

disease a year later, but

smallpox was declared

eradicated globally in

1980.

1984

After the HIV virus was

isolated Ronald

Reagan’s secretary of

health announced that a

vaccine would be found

within two years.

Decades later, however,

no vaccine yet exists

and numerous studies

have failed. One trial

was stopped after it

appeared the vaccine

raised people’s chances

of contracting HIV.

1988

Andrew Wakefield

published a study, later

discredited, claiming a

link between the

mumps, measles and

rubella vaccine and

autism. The paper was

retracted and he was

banned from practising

medicine but his claims

have led to a significant

fall in vaccination rates.

2008

The HPV vaccine was

introduced for girls in

the UK aged 12 and 13.

Boys started receiving

the jab too last year.

The World Health

Organisation has said

that cervical cancer,

caused by the HPV

virus, could be

eliminated and Australia

aims to wipe it out by

2035.

2019

The WHO reported

140,000 deaths from

measles with outbreaks

across all regions of the

world. Four European

countries, including the

UK, lost their

measles-free status,

with the drop in

vaccination rates

blamed.

performances came in

Testing times

Matt Hancock made

the offer yesterday

on a television show