COVID-19: Sir Patrick Vallance makes clear we won't see the back of the virus any time soon
In contrast to the triumphalism of some ministers, the chief scientific adviser is cautious about the impact of the vaccine.
Wednesday 20 January 2021 11:04, UK
When Sir Patrick Vallance was asked what his message was for the public, he said: "There is light at the end of the tunnel."
But his comments made clear that the tunnel will be longer than many people might expect.
In contrast to the triumphalism some ministers have exhibited, the UK government's chief scientific adviser was extremely cautious about the impact of the vaccine.
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When it comes to reducing the third wave of coronavirus infections currently hitting hospitals, Sir Patrick told Sky News: "Vaccines are not going to do the heavy lifting for us".
Even if you've had two doses of the vaccine, he warned, you should still not visit a care home.
This is because although the jab will protect most people against serious illness, it is not clear that it will stop the virus spreading.
"It's not safe," Sir Patrick said, when asked about care home visits.
"We have to know that with the levels of infection as they are at the moment, we have to stick to the rules to get the levels down. And that means not jumping the gun."
Restrictions should go on "until community infection comes down a long way from where it is now," he said.
Despite the vaccine, we may well be having the "lift or lockdown" debate all over again come March.
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Even if we do get the virus under control, it's clear that Sir Patrick doesn't think we will see the back of COVID-19 any time soon.
"I think it's quite likely that we may need vaccination every year," he said.
He also said that efforts would need to be made to adapt the vaccine to new variants, as the virus was likely to keep on mutating and it would quite possibly escape the vaccine.
Indeed, he said there was a possibility such a mutation had already occurred in South Africa.
Sir Patrick was asked about a report from Sky News showing that Israeli scientists are seeing far lower rates of protection from a single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine than the UK government has suggested is possible.
Although he admitted that "in practice" the protection provided by one dose of a Pfizer vaccine probably wouldn't be as high as 89%, the number given by the government, he pushed back against the suggestion it could be as low as 33%, the figure coming out of Israel.
That's because the Israeli figure was produced by looking at rates of infection in people who were given the jab 14 days ago, whereas the UK figure focused on data from 10 to 21 days after the jab, especially the data at the end of that period.
Sir Patrick said the government would "just need to keep measuring the numbers" from the UK's vaccine programme.
It was another reminder that although it might feel as if the end is just round the corner, we are still in the midst of this pandemic, and everything is being worked out on the fly.
There may well be several twists and turns left in this tumultuous phase of modern British history.