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Vaccines “could not fail” to impact the spread of the coronavirus, according to England’s deputy chief medical officer.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who revealed that he had administered vaccines himself, said it was less a question of “will” and “to what extent” the roll-out of the injections would reduce the rates of infection.
More than seven million people in the UK have now received a first dose of a COVID-19[female[feminine vaccine, with more than 7.6 million injections – including second doses – administered in total.
Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday, Prof Van-Tam said there was “no data yet on the extent to which vaccines will reduce transmission at this stage”.
But he said “multiple studies” were underway to examine the effect of the vaccines.
“I think that as scientists we believe in first principles that vaccines with the very high level of effectiveness that we see in clinical trials really cannot fail to have an effect on transmission,” added Professor Van-Tam.
“And the question is really less ‘are they going’ but ‘to what extent’?
“And I think when we get a clear idea of the scale, that will open up a whole host of additional questions about future vaccine deployment … about how vaccines might play a role in keeping transmission low in the world. UK.
“But these are questions for the future and I just can’t give you clear data on them at the moment.”
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Van-Tam Q&A on Schools and COVID
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, agreed that vaccines would have “some effect” on transmissions.
“You don’t have vaccines at this level of effectiveness without there being some effect, but we can’t put a number on it yet,” he said.
“I think it’s really important that as they roll out around the world we monitor them and understand – Israel has started doing that and they are starting to get data.
“They said they wouldn’t have firm data for a few weeks yet and we would be in the same position.”
“But these are important questions because… it will also determine the extent to which these vaccines can be used across society to reduce transmission in general.”
The government has previously been cautious about the possible effect of COVID vaccines on the spread of transmission.
They warned that those who have been vaccinated are still at risk of spreading the virus to others and suggested that this could mean social distancing measures could be in place for some time to come.
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Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “very confident” about the UK vaccine supply.
Asked about suggestions that the EU require AstraZeneca to take vaccines from the UK to fill a shortfall in its supplies to EU member states, the PM said: “All I can say is this ‘is that we are very confident in our supplies, we are “very confident in our contracts, and we are moving forward on that basis.” “
As of Saturday, nearly 500,000 doses of the vaccine were administered in the UK but every day since then the number of doses administered has fallen below 315,000.
Asked why immunization levels dropped this week, Mr Johnson said: “Remember these are vaccines that have just been invented and the lots are just getting approved.”
He added: “I think one of the things we said at the beginning was that there would be bumps and ups and downs especially in these early stages as production gets started. . “
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