UK Covid live: Matt Hancock says AstraZeneca vaccine ‘safe at all ages’ in bid to reassure public
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Version 0 of 17. Latest updates: health secretary also insists enough Pfizer and Moderna doses available to vaccinate under-30s And in an interview on Sky News this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, did not deny a story in the Sydney Morning Herald saying that more than 700,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK have been flown to Australia. The first shipment landed in February, and the paper suggests the Australian government did not reveal they were from the UK to avoid embarrassing Boris Johnson’s government. Hancock said the UK government did not supply the doses, and that what the company did was up to them. He said: In his interviews this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, refused to say whether the government would make it compulsory for care home staff to get vaccinated. But he said 80% of them had already had the jab. He said: Good morning. Yesterday’s announcement from the government that people under the age of 30 will be allowed to reject AstraZeneca and choose another vaccine because of the possible link to extremely rare types of blood clots was always likely to do some damage to public confidence in the vaccine programme. As my colleague’s Sarah Boseley and Daniel Boffey report in their overnight story, one public health expert described this as “a severe blow to the public’s vaccine confidence”. And so it is not surprising that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has been out this morning seeking to reassure people. Here are some of his key messages. Hancock said the AstraZeneca vaccine was “safe at all ages”. That was the view of the UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, he said, and its EU equivalent, the European Medicines Agency. He said that yesterday’s decision about offering a choice to the under-30s was just taken out of “an abundance of caution”. He said that the UK had “more than enough” Pfizer and Moderna doses to cope if under-30s do reject the AstraZeneca vaccine. He explained: He also said the speed of the overall vaccine rollout programme would not be affected by yesterday’s decision. He said the risk of developing a severe blood clot from the Astrazeneca vaccine was about four in a million - the same as the risk from taking a long-haul flight. He said: He said young people should continue to get vaccinated not just because of the risk of death from Covid, but also because of the risk of long Covid. He said: Here is the agenda for the day. 9.30am: The ONS publishes the latest weekly death figures for England and Wales, as well as figures from its infection survey about the characteristics of people testing positive for coronavirus. 11am: Members of the Northern Ireland assembly debate a motion on the recent rioting. The assembly has been recalled from its recess for the occasion. 2pm: Public Health England publishes its weekly Covid surveillance report. Also, Sir Keir Starmer is on a visit to Bristol. Politics Live has been mostly about Covid for the last year and I will be covering UK coronavirus developments today, as well as non-coronavirus politics. For global coronavirus news, do read our global live blog. I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone. If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow. |