Covid-19 Update

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. The Brexit deal that the House has just passed with such an enormous majority will help to support UK life sciences. This vaccine also shows what we can achieve as a country. We work with international partners, absolutely, but this shows what we can achieve with British science, British industry and the British Government all working together, and with the NHS, to make this happen. I will absolutely work with my hon. Friend to support the NHS in Southend, which is under pressure. The case rate is very, very high in Southend. I say to everybody in Southend that the single thing that they can do is to limit all social contact unless it is absolutely necessary. It is not a nice thing to have to say and it is not easy to do, but it is absolutely necessary in Southend.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

Covid is a truly horrible disease that poses potentially long-term consequences for even the young and the healthy, so today’s vaccine approval is truly welcome news and makes eliminating community transmission of the virus more possible than ever before. As such, is it the UK Government’s plan to loosen restrictions only when the most vulnerable have been vaccinated or when a vaccine has been given to a significant proportion of the population as a whole? If so, what will that proportion be?

[Matt Hancock]

We have not set that out yet, because while our general approach is to vaccinate, as soon as possible, as many as possible of those who are vulnerable to this disease, and to then be able to lift restrictions, as I said in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), the exact timing depends on the roll-out of the vaccine and its impact on bringing down the rate of transmission. The change in the dosage schedule from four weeks to 12 weeks means that we can get the protection to as many people as possible sooner, and in a more accelerated way, than we would previously have been able to do.