Covid: Christmas restrictions should not be needed, says minister

A second Christmas lockdown should be unnecessary if people take up the coronavirus booster vaccine, a minister has said, despite Boris Johnson warning of a “blizzard” of infections on Britain’s doorstep.

Oliver Dowden said festive freedom was “in our hands” and that vaccines would create a “wall” to protect the country this winter.

Mr Johnson has insisted that government data does not show his Covid-19 “plan B” is needed, even as he admitted rising infections in Europe posed a threat to the UK.

Urging people to take up the offer of a booster jab – now open to the over-40s – the PM said on Monday: “We don’t see anything in the data at the moment to suggest that we need to go to ‘plan B’, we’re sticking with ‘plan A’.

“But what we certainly have got to recognise is there is a storm of infection out there in parts of Europe, you can see those numbers ticking up very sharply in some of our continental friends.

“We’ve just got to recognise that there is always a risk that a blizzard could come from the east again.”

In the World Health Organisation’s most recent weekly epidemiological update for Europe, experts said the UK had the second-highest tally of new coronavirus infections after Russia, with 252,104 – or 371.4 new cases per 100,000.

Mr Dowden, the Conservative Party chair, said the government did not intend to cancel Christmas the way it did last year. He told Sky News the booster campaign was “the biggest wall of defence that we have”.

He added: “I am confident that if we stick the course, people take the boosters when they are asked to do so, that vaccine wall will hold up and we will be able to have a decent Christmas this year.”

The tacit suggestion that a new lockdown might become necessary if booster take-up is low follows weeks of government insistence that there are no plans for one.

Meanwhile, England’s deputy chief medical officer set out the possible benefits of a third vaccine dose.

Jonathan Van-Tam told a press briefing on Monday: “They're showing that in people aged over 60 in Israel, after a messenger RNA booster, and compared with simply having received the first two doses of Pfizer – in the case of Israel three to four weeks apart – they are observing a tenfold reduction against all Covid infections, an 18.7-fold reduction against hospitalisations, and a 14.7-fold reduction against mortality, and that's on top of the initial course of Pfizer.

“So I believe therefore that if the booster programme is successful, and with very high uptake, we can massively reduce the worry about hospitalisation and death due to Covid at Christmas, and for the rest of this winter.”

However, Prof Van-Tam warned Britain had “a bumpy few months ahead” thanks to coronavirus and other respiratory diseases like flu. He added: “Everyone has a key role to play in achieving as safe and disruption-free a winter as possible.”