The Observer can reveal that Boris Johnson was accused of ignoring a plan to prepare Britain for the emergence of vaccine-resistant Covid variants.
The former head of the government's vaccine task force said he could not see any evidence that his plan to tackle the most worrying variant had been acted upon.
The former chairman of the task force that tackled the Pandemic said in an interview that the UK was no longer on the front foot. He said that he wrote a proposal on what should be put in place for the emergence of any new viruses that escaped the vaccine. At the end of April, I handed that over to the vaccine task force. I haven't seen any of those activities yet.
In May, I sent a note to No 10 saying that the situation was still an emergency and that it should be dealt with quickly. I did not get a response to that. I asked the government what was going on, because we need to do this. I don't see that happening.
I think it is time to ask the vaccine taskforce and the government what their plan is for an escape variant. What is your plan for resilience in the future? I think the country needs to know.
Kate Bingham, the first chair of the vaccine taskforce, warned in a speech last week that the outcome could have been different if the government had relied on the existing machinery. The government should publish its plans for tackling vaccine-resistant Covid variants, according to Dominic Cummings, the prime minister's former chief adviser.
A coordinating team would seek out new vaccines, give the company involved a fast track to a trial, access to the data and regulatory approval, in return for early access to new vaccines. The system worked at the start of the epidemic.
He warned that Britain would be at the back of the queue if it waited to buy vaccines until they had been developed. The UK won't be at the front of the queue if we leave it to the industry. You get things done if you act as a partner. It is not rocket science and the infrastructure is there.
He said that the French company Valneva was a key part of the process. He said the government's decision to scrap its existing contract with the company had damaged that approach.
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The new UK Covid measures will be announced.
The two cases of Omicron-covid-variant identified-in-uk were reported by The Guardian.
He was hopeful that the Omicron variant wouldn't lead to increased serious illness and death because it was likely to be more resistant to current vaccines. He said that the current variant is a beast. It has a lot of changes in it, and the likelihood is that the antibodies we have already generated from the vaccines will be less effective. They are less effective against the Delta variant in stopping people from getting sick, but they are more effective in stopping people from dying.
I think that will hold with the South African variant. The reason people don't get seriously ill and die is not because of the immune system. The longer-term cellular immune response is what it is. It is obvious that that is what is keeping people out of hospital. I'm pretty sure that response will continue.
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