Vaccines Minister Says It’s “Too Early To Tell” If Vaccine Or Lockdown Is Making Covid Cases Fall
Zahawi said data on how vaccines are affecting the pandemic would be available in the "next few weeks" (PA)
3 min read
Nadhim Zahawi has said more data is needed to know whether falling coronavirus infection rates are due to the vaccine rollout or the nationwide lockdown.
The vaccines minister added that data would be available “in the next few weeks” from ongoing studies of individuals in the top priority groups who had already received the vaccine.
It comes after the Prime Minister said yesterday that there were "grounds for confidence" the vaccines were helping to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Boris Johnson also said he “hoped and believed” that the UK was on track to vaccinate everyone in the first nine priority groups, including everyone over 50, by the end of April.
New cases of coronavirus dropped to their lowest level since early October in the week up to February 9, according to government figures. More than 15 million people have received the vaccination. But the UK has also been subject to a tough lockdown for over a month.
Asked by BBC’s Today programme on Tuesday whether falling infection rates were due to the vaccine programme, Zahawi said: “We have a couple of very large scale studies related to giving us better data on the vaccine.”
“So we should be able to see really good data in the next few weeks from those studies, and as [Chief Medical Officer] Chris Whitty quite rightly pointed out, you want to be able to see with the naked eye, rather than just calculated,” he added.
Asked if he believed it is “too early to tell exactly how much is locked down how much is vaccine”, Zahawi replied: “I think that’s accurate.”
The average number of daily positive Covid-19 tests in the week to 9 February was 14,270.7 which is the lowest weekly average since the week up to October 3, prior to the November lockdown and second wave of the virus.
Appearing from Downing Street yesterday, Boris Johnson praised the ongoing vaccine programme which he said continues to "power past" the targets set for it after successfully jabbing more than 15 million people in the top four cohorts on Sunday.
Johnson continued: "If we can keep this pace up and if we can keep supply steady – and I hope and believe we can – then we hope to offer a vaccination to everyone in the first nine priority groups, including everyone over 50, by the end of April."
He added, however, that the government could not guarantee there would be no further lockdowns “because we are battling with nature, with a disease that is capable of mutating and changing”.
The Prime Minister is set to reveal the “roadmap” out of lockdown on 22 February, but he cautioned yesterday that he didn’t have “sufficient clarity” at present to outline what he will say.
"That's because the data becomes clearer with every day that passes and we have to continue to evaluate,” he said.
“And also, to be absolutely clear, these decisions we will take in the course of this week but they are not yet taken.”
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