Speaking in the Commons on Monday night, Matt Hancock acknowledged that some areas were running out of the Pfizer vaccine. “The fact that the fridges ran out of Pfizer demonstrates we’re getting through this as fast as we can,” he said, in response to a question from the Birmingham MP Liam Byrne. “Supply is the rate limiting factor on vaccination.”
Certainly, the UK appears to have little problem with demand, but Mr Hancock’s somewhat optimistic spin on the matter risks bordering on complacency. The country has grown used to having a vaccination programme that has performed substantially better than that of its main competitors, especially the EU. The venture capitalist, Kate Bingham, used her commercial acumen to acquire jabs early and in large enough quantities to give the UK a head start. In the first few months, the NHS managed to deliver considerably more doses per capita than most other similarly-sized countries.
Yet just as the so-called race between the vaccine and the variants intensifies, there are indications that the programme is failing to keep up. We report today that some people have had their appointments cancelled, and there are suspicions that supply shortages could be down to more than just high demand, which should have been anticipated. The advice not to use AstraZeneca for younger age groups if alternative jabs are available, for example, means that greater pressure has been placed on Pfizer and Moderna. Unlike other countries, which have made better use of the private sector to aid distribution, the UK’s vaccination effort remains substantially a public sector affair.
It would be a pity if Ms Bingham’s early successes were to be squandered, particularly if it were to mean further delays in the release of lockdown. The challenge will not end even once adults have received their second jab. The Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said at the No10 press conference this week that children may need to be vaccinated in order that their education can continue without disruption. Booster doses for vulnerable adults are also likely to be required in the autumn and winter.
At the very least, the Government should end the secrecy with which it shrouds information about its vaccine supply. If there is a problem, the public is entitled to know what it is.
Matt Hancock failed to tell Boris Johnson about a major Public Health England (PHE) study showing the effectiveness of vaccines against the Indian or delta variant during a key meeting to decide whether to extend Covid restrictions, The Telegraph can disclose.
The Telegraph understands that the Health Secretary had known about the PHE data three days before the "quad" of four senior ministers, led by the Prime Minister, met last Sunday to decide whether to postpone the planned June 21 reopening until July 19.
However, multiple sources familiar with the meeting said it was not raised by Mr Hancock or discussed at all during the course of the talks.
The data was also not included in briefing papers given to Mr Johnson, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor and Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, in advance of the meeting.
The bombshell disclosure raises the possibility that the quad could have opted to press ahead with lifting the restrictions on Monday if they had been aware of the study, which showed that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines were more effective at preventing hospitalisation with the variant than they were against previous strains.
It comes after it emerged last week that Mr Johnson had called Mr Hancock "hopeless" over his handling of the pandemic last year.
On Saturday night, senior Tories asked whether the Health Secretary had "bounced" the Prime Minister into extending the current measures.
The disclosure will fuel calls for the measures to be lifted on July 5 – the halfway point before July 19 at which Mr Johnson said the Government could decide to lift them early.
One Cabinet minister insisted there must now be a "political decision" to allow businesses to operate fully again due to concerns about severe harm being done to the economy with relatively "little benefit".
On Saturday night Steve Baker, the deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of Conservative MPs, said: "Either Matt Hancock thought this data was insignificant or he thought it should be withheld from the Prime Minister and other key ministers.
"Either way, the mind boggles at what conversation must now be necessary with the Prime Minister, and I feel confident it will be a matter of interest to my colleagues on the relevant select committees. If Matt Hancock was deliberately withholding relevant information, what was he trying to gain? Was the Prime Minister bounced?"
A Department of Health spokesman denied that Mr Hancock "bounced" the Prime Minister.
Senior ministers were said to be furious with how the decision-making process was handled. Sources close to members of the "quad" also said they were not provided with the usual explanations that accompany modelling by Sage scientists presented at the meeting, which showed that a June 21 reopening would lead to a large resurgence in hospital admissions.
A source close to the "quad" said: "They were presented with the [Sage] data without the assumptions that it was based on." Members of the quad were said to be "very annoyed". The claim was denied by other Government sources.
The Telegraph understands that Mr Hancock was briefed on the overall findings of the data on Thursday June 10, before PHE went on to send its written analysis to the Health Secretary on Saturday June 12.
On the Saturday, Mr Johnson hosted a brief virtual meeting of the quad from the G7 summit on Cornwall, ahead of the longer meeting following his return to Downing Street the next day.
However, the first notification that Number 10 received of the results was in an email to aides at around 3pm on Sunday June 13, shortly before the meeting that evening at which ministers decided to extend the restrictions.
Sources with the talks said an email sent so close to the meeting did not amount to a meaningful attempt to inform Mr Johnson of the data.
Mr Baker added: "To send an email so late in the day is an act of opposition. It's the sort of thing we do to Labour MPs before appearing in their constituencies to campaign. It's not what a Health Secretary should do to a Prime Minister."
A Government source insisted that "equivalent data" to the PHE study was shown to the quad. The "equivalent" data was said to have been drawn up by Sage's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) and to have included similar figures to the PHE's findings on the efficacy of the vaccines.
The source said: "When the decision was made to delay, ministers knew that the vaccines work. That is why we are buying more time to get more jabs in arms."
But the PHE data, which was only made public on Monday evening after Mr Johnson announced the delay, was based on an analysis of 14,019 cases of the delta variant as recent as June 4, looking at emergency hospital admissions in England.
It was described by PHE as "hugely important findings" which "confirm that the vaccines offer significant protection against hospitalisation from the delta variant".
Real world data showed that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was 94 per cent effective against hospital admission from the variant after one dose, rising to 96 per cent after two jabs. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was found to be 71 per cent effective against hospital admission after one dose, rising to 92 per cent after two jabs.
The data showed that both vaccines are more effective at preventing hospitalisation against the variant than they had been against previous types.
Meanwhile, separate analysis by The Telegraph shows that hospital admissions in regions with the highest outbreaks of the delta variant are rising at a third of the pace of last September, while a third of hospitals in England have no Covid patients at all.
Mr Hancock also told MPs this week that people who catch the virus are now spending 20 per cent less time in hospital beds, with the average stay being cut from 10 to eight days.
A Government source said: "The reason we need more time is because of the increased transmissibility of the delta variant, not because of vaccine escape."
A Department of Health spokesman said any suggestion that Mr Hancock "bounced" Mr Johnson was "categorically untrue". He added: "Information which was provided by PHE was shared across Government before the meeting. Analysis and work on the scientific paper continued over the weekend before it was published as soon as it was ready on Monday."
A source close to the "quad" said: "They were presented with the [Sage] data without the assumptions that it was based on." Members of the quad were said to be "very annoyed". The claim was denied by other Government sources.
The Telegraph understands that Mr Hancock was briefed on the overall findings of the data on Thursday June 10, before PHE went on to send its written analysis to the Health Secretary on Saturday June 12.
On the Saturday, Mr Johnson hosted a brief virtual meeting of the quad from the G7 summit on Cornwall, ahead of the longer meeting following his return to Downing Street the next day.
However, the first notification that Number 10 received of the results was in an email to aides at around 3pm on Sunday June 13, shortly before the meeting that evening at which ministers decided to extend the restrictions.
Sources with the talks said an email sent so close to the meeting did not amount to a meaningful attempt to inform Mr Johnson of the data.
Mr Baker added: "To send an email so late in the day is an act of opposition. It's the sort of thing we do to Labour MPs before appearing in their constituencies to campaign. It's not what a Health Secretary should do to a Prime Minister."
A Government source insisted that "equivalent data" to the PHE study was shown to the quad. The "equivalent" data was said to have been drawn up by Sage's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) and to have included similar figures to the PHE's findings on the efficacy of the vaccines.
The source said: "When the decision was made to delay, ministers knew that the vaccines work. That is why we are buying more time to get more jabs in arms."
But the PHE data, which was only made public on Monday evening after Mr Johnson announced the delay, was based on an analysis of 14,019 cases of the delta variant as recent as June 4, looking at emergency hospital admissions in England.
It was described by PHE as "hugely important findings" which "confirm that the vaccines offer significant protection against hospitalisation from the delta variant".
Real world data showed that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was 94 per cent effective against hospital admission from the variant after one dose, rising to 96 per cent after two jabs. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was found to be 71 per cent effective against hospital admission after one dose, rising to 92 per cent after two jabs.
The data showed that both vaccines are more effective at preventing hospitalisation against the variant than they had been against previous types.
Meanwhile, separate analysis by The Telegraph shows that hospital admissions in regions with the highest outbreaks of the delta variant are rising at a third of the pace of last September, while a third of hospitals in England have no Covid patients at all.
Mr Hancock also told MPs this week that people who catch the virus are now spending 20 per cent less time in hospital beds, with the average stay being cut from 10 to eight days.
A Government source said: "The reason we need more time is because of the increased transmissibility of the delta variant, not because of vaccine escape."
A Department of Health spokesman said any suggestion that Mr Hancock "bounced" Mr Johnson was "categorically untrue". He added: "Information which was provided by PHE was shared across Government before the meeting. Analysis and work on the scientific paper continued over the weekend before it was published as soon as it was ready on Monday."
Downing Street under Boris Johnson is “a branch of the entertainment industry” and nothing will get done in terms of serious policy focus until he leaves, Dominic Cummings has said in his latest blast at his former boss.
In a question and answer session with paid subscribers to his Substack newsletter, Johnson’s former chief adviser described the prime minister as “a pundit who stumbled into politics and acts like that 99% of the time”.
Giving evidence to MPs last month, Cummings criticised Johnson as completely unfit to be prime minister, describing him as media obsessed and “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”.
On Monday, answering a question on the potential cybersecurity threat to the UK if another country develops human-level artificial general intelligence, or AGI, Cummings wrote that this would be huge, potentially giving those with AGI “the power to subdue everyone – and destroy us all”.
Cummings said that if he had stayed at No 10 – he was dismissed in November – he would have ordered a focus on the threat, but this would not happen under Johnson.
“NOTHING like this now will get serious focus in no10 – no10 now is just a branch of entertainment industry and will stay so til BJ gone, at earliest,” he wrote.
“The most valuable commodity in gvt is focus and the PM literally believes that focus is a menace to his freedom to do whatever he fancies today, hence why you see the opposite of focus now and will do til he goes …”
Earlier in the lengthy thread, Cummings was asked if he saw Johnson more as a hedgehog or fox, a reference to a celebrated Isaiah Berlin essay that categorised people into those who inhabit one central idea and those with a broader view.
He replied: “Neither, he’s a pundit who stumbled into politics and acts like that 99% of the time but 1% not – and that 1% is why pundits misunderstand him/underestimate him.”
Among a string of answers covering everything from his admiration for the 19th-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck to lessons from the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, Cummings also talked about what he had learned from proximity to power.
He wrote: “When you watch the apex of power you feel like, ‘If this were broadcast, everyone would sell everything and head for the bunker in the hills’.
“It’s impossible to describe how horrific decision-making is at the apex of power and how few people watching it have any clue how bad it is or any sense of how to do it better, it’s generally the blind leading the blind with a few non-blind desperately shoving fingers in dykes and clutching their heads …”
Cummings found time to further insult Matt Hancock, having claimed during his evidence to MPs that the health secretary lied to colleagues amid the Covid pandemic, later releasing screenshots of a message in which Johnson called Hancock “totally hopeless”.
Asked by one reader about some statements made by Hancock about Covid, and whether these revealed a particular philosophical approach within government, Cummings said: “Hancock just says nonsense things all the time, I would not infer there is some complex moral reasoning going on!”
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
