Sir John Bell: ‘Most people who have had the Covid vaccine are completely safe’

John Bell and his wife can often be seen rowing in a double scull on the stretch of the river near their home in Wallingford, just outside Oxford.

Bell's voice became familiar to millions of radio listeners during the Pandemic. Bell was asked on Radio 4 if the world would return to normal after news broke that a viable Covid-19 vaccine was on its way. His reply was emphatic. His words lifted spirits and moved markets.

The 69-year-old professor of medicine at the University of Oxford was an early member of the government's vaccine task force and worked on Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine. He predicted last December that Omicron was not the same disease as a year ago, and that high Covid death rates in the UK were now history.

Bell told the Observer in a restaurant on Oxford's high street that most people who have had the vaccine are happy.

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Age 69

A family has three children.

In 1975, I graduated from the University ofAlberta with a degree in medicine and went on to study medicine at Oxford University and postgraduate training in London.

I can't remember the last holiday. This summer, off to Canada.

If you believe in something, never give up, that's the best advice he's been given.

Trying to help Oxford University by sitting on its council is the biggest career mistake.

He uses a lot of words.

He relaxes by swimming in the university pool, hiking and cycling.

Unvaccinated. He acknowledges that frail elderly people and the immunocompromised are also at greater risk.

It would be sensible to give more booster jabs in the autumn to people over 65 and those with poor immune systems, unless there is a more severe Covid.

If we get a variant of the vaccine which is more dangerous, we need to get another vaccine. He sees a very high chance that a new variant will be relatively mild like Omicron, while the chances of a more lethal variant are very low.

Bell is optimistic about the second generation of Covid vaccines, which are expected to be on the market within one to two years, but the main challenge is to come up with a jab that stops transmission of the virus. He and other scientists hope that a vaccine that uses T-cells to kill infections could offer longer- lasting immunity than current jabs and that a spray could stop transmission.

Many people in poorer countries have not had a single dose of the vaccine because it is very unevenly distributed. Bell is proud of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, which has sold close to 3 billion doses in 180 countries and was not for profit until late last year. It was at the center of a political controversy a year ago, with accusations over efficacy, supply and side-effects, despite being billed as a vaccine for the world.

Bell says that comments made by politicians such as the French president cost many lives because people were worried about the safety of taking the jab. If you are living in French West Africa, imagine if you are being disrupted by a campaign on social media. Imagine if you were the guy on the street. The problem with vaccine hesitancy in Africa is that no one is accountable for it.

Bell believes that the shot will be used across the world as a booster jab and that it will be particularly good at boosting Chinese-made Covid vaccines in African, South American and some Asian countries.

Bell has a Canadian accent. He drives a car, but is seen as a down-to-earth person by his colleagues. He is a man who has served several prime ministers and is one of the UK's top epidemiologists.

His mother taught pharmacy at university while his father was a professor of haemotology and his grandfather was a professor of anaesthesias. Bell studied medicine in Canada and at Oxford and later became a regius professor in the subject, setting up three biotech companies and advising the UK government on its life science strategy. He doesn't like lab-based research, but he can do everything.

Bell has been advising the government on how to increase the industry's size, which is second only to the US. According to figures from the BioIndustry Association (BIA), investment poured into UK biotech last year, a 16-fold increase from 2012

The City of London with its great financial institutions, pension funds and insurers – they do not invest in private companies

Bell chairs Immunocore, which uses the body's immune system to kill cancer. Bell says that the company has lots of startup capital, but no growth capital.

The government wants to make it easier for pension schemes to invest in illiquid assets to improve returns for their members. He says he will be the first guy dancing in the street if the rules are changed.