The latest round of the COVID inquiry focuses on vaccines and anti-viral treatment across the UK. Today we've heard from several groups representing bereaved families whose loved ones died in the pandemic.
Wednesday 15 January 2025 16:28, UK
This stream of the COVID-19 inquiry has ended for today, but we'll be back tomorrow when former health secretary Matt Hancock is due to give evidence.
Welcome back to our coverage of the COVID inquiry.
Today the inquiry will hear from leaders of bereaved families groups.
Watch proceedings live in the stream at the top of the page - we won't be providing text updates.
Here's what the day looks like, including who will speak:
Morning session
Afternoon session
We're no longer posting updates on the inquiry today, but you can watch the proceedings live at the top of this page.
By Thomas Moore, science correspondent
The COVID vaccine rollout is widely seen as a rare pandemic success for the government.
The UK Health Security Agency has calculated that 123,000 deaths were prevented in the first nine months of the jab being used.
And according to the World Health Organisation, more deaths were prevented through vaccination in the UK than any other country.
There was smart procurement of vaccines by an independent task force while they were still in clinical trials, putting Britain at the front of the queue once they were cleared by regulators.
And the subsequent rollout was blisteringly quick, with as many as 4,000 centres staffed by volunteers around the country.
But as the months passed there were clear problems that emerged, and they will be examined by the COVID Inquiry.
First is the unequal uptake across the population. Fewer than 66% of people over the age of 80 with a black African heritage took the vaccine during the initial rollout, compared to more than 97% of white British people.
Were people from some groups less trusting of government and related authorities? Were they targeted with false information about the vaccine itself? And did the government do enough to counter misinformation and maintain confidence in the jabs?
Second, while the effectiveness of the vaccines was beyond doubt, there is now known to be a very rare risk of a blood clotting disorder with the AstraZeneca jab.
Hugo Keith, counsel to the inquiry, said in his opening statement that some side effects are so rare they are difficult to detect before a vaccine is authorised.
More people were vaccinated in the first two days of the rollout than in all clinical trials in the UK up to that point.
But an important question remains on whether medicine regulators were swift enough in restricting the use of the vaccine once problems emerged.
Other European countries acted sooner and there are people who suffered vaccine injury while authorities in the UK waited for further evidence.
The third important point is whether the safety net for people who suffer an injury from rare side effects is fit for purpose.
The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme awards just 拢120,000, which nowhere near replaces the potential lifetime earnings of a middle-aged parent.
And that's only for people who can prove they are at least 60% disabled as a result of their injury, a threshold that dates from industrial injuries many decades ago.
Maintaining confidence in vaccinations is critical for the future. And that's why lessons need to be learned. The rollout went well, but it could have gone even better.
The inquiry has paused for lunch until 1.45pm.
From then, we won't be posting any more updates today, but you will be still able to watch the proceedings live at the top of this page.
Allison Munroe concludes by stressing the importance of this inquiry.
She says it's "all too easy for people to forget not only the details and recommendations of inquiries, but they that they happened at all".
This, she adds, becomes a "collective amnesia" which makes it easier for people to "wring their hands" years later "when a passing bandwagon" comes along and asks why nothing has changed.
"We cannot afford for that to happen to this inquiry," she says.
Allison Munroe KC says the government's failure to address known barriers in vaccine uptake for minority groups is "consistent with structural racism".
She says the term "vaccine hesitancy" shifts blame onto the shoulders of individuals unfairly and fails to acknowledge "the barriers these groups face in vaccine uptake".
"We know historically that those from black and minority communities were more at risk of contracting COVID," she says.
"The first ten doctors who died from COVID were from BAME backgrounds, and 63% of the health care workers who died in June 2020 from COVID were from BAME backgrounds," she adds.
She says bereaved families consider that the government's failure to address "known and pre-existing barriers to vaccine uptake among ethnic minorities and migrant groups in its pre-planning, development and rollout is consistent with structural and institutional racism".
The impact video has finished and we're now hearing opening statements from this hearing's core participants.
Allison Munroe KC, from the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, says the inquiry needs to consider the "good, the bad and, whilst not necessarily ugly, the somewhat unsightly and troubling" side of vaccine procurement during the pandemic.
There was "much to be praised about securing a vaccine in the UK", she says, but adds the picture is "rather more complex and nuanced than at first blush".
She cites accounts from a number of professors, which form part of their evidence to be presented during this stage of the inquiry.
Funding to support research and delivery of new vaccines "was and remains suboptimal and fragmented", she says as part of her statement.
Clinical trials, too, raised some concerns, she adds, referring to a professor's remarks that "our old friend lack of data remains a stubborn and unwelcome guest".
She continues: "So, from that brief look at some of the aspects of planning and preparedness, it is clear that it will be imperative that the inquiry examines the narrative critically and addresses the fundamental question - where do we stand now?"
She raises a statement from another professor, arguing the UK is "not well-prepared to produce vaccines for the next pandemic".
"There is no coordination and no plan, there is no national capability, we have not invested in vaccine development, the infrastructure is questionable," she adds.
Moreover, she says the "negative impact of leaving the EU" means we are "falling behind our European counterparts".
"All the research brilliance in the world will be limited without infrastructure funding and manufacturing and the ability to progress vaccine discoveries," she says.
We're now watching an impact video, which consists of accounts from people who say they suffered very rare side effects from the vaccination programme.
Before it begins, Baroness Heather Hallett emphasises the video is not evidence, nor does it intend to be representative of the experience of the vaccinated population of the United Kingdom.
"It does not reflect my views," says Baroness Hallett. "I will reach my findings on the evidence, and the evidence will explore in detail the overall benefits of the vaccination programme, as well as any problems it faced, or it created."
The video begins with clips from several people, many of whom lost close relatives due to COVID.
One woman, called Katy from Scotland, said after she got the vaccination she had "terrible migraines" and "convulsions", and there was "no support" afterward.
Riffat, from West Yorkshire, says she started feeling dizzy after the booster and "just passed out" in her bathroom. She says her doctors discovered she had a burst blood clot, but did not believe it was connected to the vaccine.
"The vaccine has been good for many people, but for those who have suffered because of it, there needs to be an appropriate way to address it, not to just tell you that you're imagining it."
One woman, called K from London, said she had "misgivings" about the vaccine but was among the first in the line as she had a pre-existing medical condition.
"I am grateful that it seems to have worked. The fears I had didn't materialise. It's given us our lives back to what we had before," she says.
Focus now shifts to limited mandatory vaccinations, which the counsel to the inquiry describes as a "highly contentious topic".
Hugo Keith KC says support for the policy in the UK was "generally quite low", but it came into effect for staff in care homes in England in October 2021.
"There is considerable evidence... that this may not be necessary in any event, because the levels of uptake in the care sector were at a relatively high level anyway," he says.
"In addition, it's been estimated that the policy led to large numbers of staff leaving the sector."
He touches on the government announcing in November 2021 the policy would be extended to frontline healthcare and social workers - which was "met with concern by the unions", he says.
"And, in fact, the UK government's own impact assessment estimated that even with mandatory vaccination, only a minority of healthcare workers would comply, resulting in tens of thousands of health care workers facing unemployment or redeployment," he adds.
This policy extension was ditched a month before it was due to be enforced, he notes.
