The vaccination mandate has already come into effect for care home staff, volunteers, and visitors from Nov. 11. Parliament approved the mandate for frontline NHS workers on Dec. 14.
Steve James, a consultant anesthetist at the King’s College Hospital, told Javid that he doesn’t believe the science for mandating the vaccines is “strong enough” and the government should at least consider the nuance that some doctors have had antibodies through previous exposure to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus—the virus that causes COVID-19.
“I’m not happy about that,” James told the health secretary after he asked an intensive care unit (ICU) their thoughts about the new rule to require CCP virus vaccination for NHS staff.
The unvaccinated doctor said he had had COVID-19 and had been working in COVID-19 ICU since the beginning of the pandemic.
“I’ve not had a vaccination. I do not want to have a vaccination,” James said, adding that one of his colleagues was in the same situation.
“The vaccines are reducing transmission only for eight weeks for [the] Delta [variant of the CCP virus]. With Omicron, it’s probably less. For that, I will be dismissed if I don’t have a vaccine? The science isn’t strong enough,” he told Javid.
The health secretary said he respects James’s view, adding, “but there’re also many different views.”
“Obviously, we have to weigh all that up—for both health and social care—and there will always be a debate about it,” Javid said.
James suggested Javid should reconsider the mandate, considering “Omicron and the changing picture,” or at least the “nuance” that doctors who had previous infections can be exempt because the “protection I’ve got from transmission is probably equivalent to someone who’s vaccinated.”
When Javid said his immunity “at some point ... will wane as well,” James suggested that to maintain a high level of protection against transmission, every staff member would have to get a booster dose “every single month.”
Javid said the ministers “take the very best advice that we can from people that are vaccine experts.”
In a statement to Sky News, King’s College Hospital said, “While currently it is not a mandatory requirement for staff to get their COVID-19 vaccination or disclose vaccination status to patients, we strongly support and encourage all our staff to get their jab, in line with national guidance—and nearly 90% of our staff have already done so.”
James later told PA news agency that he did not believe COVID-19 was causing “very significant problems” for young people, adding that his patients in the ICU had been “extremely overweight” with multiple other co-morbidities.
He also said the health secretary did not seem to agree with him but had listened to his opinion.
“I wouldn’t say he agreed with me,” he said. “I had the feeling he was listening.”
Analysing real-world data from England between Jan. 2 and Aug. 2, 2021, the government-funded study suggested that Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine reduced the transmission of Delta by 50 percent two weeks after the second dose, but the reduction shrunk to 24 percent 10 weeks later. The Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine only offered a 24 percent reduction in transmission after two weeks and 2 percent after 12 weeks.
However, with Omicron’s increased ability to evade immunity, the UK is experiencing a record-high number of cases despite the country’s high vaccination rate, with troops deployed to assist hospitals amid staff shortages.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.
