London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

'Do not wreck this now': Van-Tam warns against giving up on Covid rules

'Do not wreck this now': Van-Tam warns against giving up on Covid rules

Adviser calls for continued adherence to lockdown, as age-based phase 2 of vaccine programme announced


Ministers and scientific advisers have urged the public not to give up on strict lockdown rules, amid worries that the very obvious success of the UK vaccination programme and the arrival of spring are causing people to take more risks.

“Do not wreck this, we are so close,” said Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, after Downing Street confirmed plans for the second stage of the vaccination programme, due to offer at least a first dose to all adults by the summer.

Van-Tam said he had been “besieged with people writing in saying ‘I have had the vaccine and essentially can I start breaking the rules’.” The answer to that was no, he said, as the country was not yet “in the right place … it is too early to relax”.

The second stage of the vaccination programme will be based on age rather than occupation or clinical vulnerability, prompting a backlash from unions representing frontline workers, as well as patients’ groups.

Van-Tam said an age-based rollout would be quick and straightforward, and people should worry less about their place in the queue than “making sure that queue moves really fast”.

He and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, used a Downing Street press conference unveiling the vaccination plans to urge caution, even as official statistics indicated that the number of people in England contracting Covid had halved in the past fortnight.


Rates of hospital admissions and deaths were still “far too high”, Hancock said. Van-Tam called up what he termed “quite sobering” slides showing a rise in coronavirus cases in some parts of the country, including the Midlands and parts of the west coast of England.

“Although it is generally good news, I’m afraid it is better news in some places than it is in others and this is not a battle that we have won yet,” he said.

Van-Tam, who has gained a reputation during the pandemic as the government’s most effective and evocative communicator, said there were “some worry signs that people are relaxing, taking their foot off the brake at exactly the wrong time”, likening it to a football match in which one side had taken a 3-0 lead.

He said: “But how many times have you seen the other side take it 4-3? It is too early to relax. Just continue to maintain discipline and hang on. Just a few more months. Do not wreck this now, we are so close.”

Hancock and Van-Tam defended the next stage of the vaccine plan, unveiled by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on Friday and endorsed by Downing Street. Phase 2 will begin with people aged 40-49, progressing to those aged 30-39, then everyone aged 18-29, with a target date for first doses by the end of July.

With public health experts saying it would be logistically difficult to target people by job, potentially slowing the rollout, Hancock said: “Our moral duty is saving lives first, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Van-Tam said professions with the highest Covid death rates included restaurant workers, food processing staff and cab drivers, who would need to be prioritised in any jobs-based rollout.

“You can see that is going to be very difficult because of the multiplicity of occupations that would need to be called forwards,” Van-Tam said. “And doing that is going to damage the pace of the vaccine rollout so much. And the big win, actually, is in speed.”

But the plans prompted fury from some unions, with the Police Federation of England and Wales calling it “an utter betrayal of police officers”. John Apter, the chair of the federation, said ministers had abdicated responsibility to “hide behind the science of the JCVI”.

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said the logistical difficulties of a job-based rollout was “not a good enough reason not to prioritise the needs of committed professionals”.

Mick Pimblett, the assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said that even on Friday morning he had been led to believe members would be prioritised, given their role in a closed, confined environment.

Blood Cancer UK said people living with the disease, who have been vaccinated but are hugely vulnerable, would be “devastated” that fellow household members had not been prioritised.

“The JCVI have made a bad decision that will needlessly put the lives of people with blood cancer at risk,” said Gemma Peters, the charity’s chief executive.

Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of Asthma UK, said the decision to not prioritise all people with the condition – people with particularly severe asthma were included in phase 1 – would leave some feeling “anxious, angry and ignored by government”.

But Prof Wei Shen Lim, the Covid-19 chair for JCVI, said an occupation-based vaccine programme had never been tested before on a large scale in the UK, and there were difficulties associated with it, such as people’s occupations not necessarily being recorded in their health records.

He said: “The evidence is clear that the risk of hospitalisation and death increases with age. The vaccination programme is a huge success and continuing the age-based rollout will provide the greatest benefit in the shortest time, including to those in occupations at a higher risk of exposure.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×