Doing the media round this morning Health Secretary Matt Hancock has guaranteed that everybody who has had the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine will get a second dose within 12 weeks.
On schools reopening by Easter he told Sky News:
“I hope so but we’ve got to look at the data – we’ll make an announcement as soon as we know.”
Schools he confirmed are to have two weeks notice ahead of reopening, as per Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s recent announcement, “and I don’t know if it’ll be then (Easter), or before then.”
He said that the “debate” about vaccinating all teachers should wait until the most clinically vulnerable groups have received their inoculations.
“A bit like with the 12-week dosing schedule, we’re doing this in clinical priority order, in order to save the most lives,” he said, insisting that the “challenge” of the roll-out was supply of the vaccine.
He told the Andrew Marr show that there are “early signs cases are starting to come down – this isn’t just about the Government, this is about each and every one of us.”
The vaccine roll-out is “going really rapidly”, he added
Asked by Andrew Marr about claims from an Israeli health minister that 80 per cent of people would need vaccination to achieve immunity, Mr Hancock says it’s “too early to say”.
“We don’t know how much the vaccine impacts on how much you transmit the virus. That’s why it’s so important people continue to stay at home after they’ve had the vaccine. Those sorts of calculations – it’s far too early to know.”
