“There is new, very early data out from Oxford University. And I would stress that this is from the labs, it’s not clinical data, and it is very early,” he said, “but it does give us that degree of confidence that the vaccines work against this Indian variant.”
Hancock said it means the UK government can “stay on course” with its strategy of using the vaccine to deal with the pandemic.
“We have a high degree of confidence that the vaccine will overcome,” the health secretary said.
Asked if the next step should be delayed due to concerns from the Indian variant, Hancock said it will go ahead as planned because all criteria had been met, but the Indian variant may still knock the road map off course later.
“We’ve said at each step, we will look at the four tests that we have. ... And our assessment was all four are met,” Hancock said.
“The fourth of those four tests is whether a new variant knocks us off course. And we'll of course be assessing that over the weeks to come.”
The last step of the road map, which is due on June 21, will see off all of the legal restrictions. Hancock said the final decision will be made a week ahead of the date.
“We‘ll make a final decision for the step four, which is the biggest step on the road map. We’ll make that final decision on the June 14,” he said.
“It is becoming the dominant strain in some parts of the country, for instance in Bolton and in Blackburn,” Hancock said.
Hancock said the government would not rule out regional restrictions.
“The approach we’re taking in Bolton and Blackburn is to absolutely pile in testing and vaccinations to try to get on top of this,” he said.
“So at the moment we’re taking the approach that worked in south London—which is this massive surge testing—but of course we don’t rule out further action,” he said.
“Given, though, Bolton has been in some form a kind of a lockdown for a year, it’s not a step we want to take, but of course we might have to take it and we will if it’s necessary to protect people.”
