No end in sight.

A modern world which thought it made the rules cut down to size by Mother Nature, humbled on, frightened by unimaginable pain.

But now a destination hoping interview.

For the first time since this wretched virus took hold, we can see a route out of the pandemic.

The breakthroughs in treatments in testing vaccines mean that the scientific cavalry is now in sight on Do we know in our hearts.

The next year we will succeed.

A tentative start on the journey will be made on the second of December, when the current England wide restrictions will be replaced by a beefed up regional tiered system.

Many more will be in the higher tiers.

All areas in the highest tier will be given extra testing for six weeks, by which time a nationwide vaccination program should be underway.

On over Christmas.

A careful relax ation off some rules.

I know that many of us want and need Christmas with our families.

We feel after this year we deserve it.

But this is not the moment to let the virus rip for the sake of Christmas parties.

It is the season to be jolly.

But it is also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives.

It felt at times today as if they were to Boris Johnson's appearing from his self isolation layer here in Downing Street tonight.

Ah, highly cautious prime minister adopted a downbeat tone as he warned the country off a hard slog ahead.

But earlier, ah, more boosterish prime minister was beamed into Parliament as he sought to reassure conservative MPs who are highly skeptical off continuing restrictions.

A former health minister sees slow moves towards a happier place.

This is about putting together the vaccine testing on the improved test track and isolate to make sure that we can get safely through to the spring when hopefully through science, we can achieve some sort of herd immunity.

I think that's the best hope that we've got right now.

There are many, many forks left in the road.

Many bends.

Many people feel like they're going around the bend.

Many of us do in 2020 the year that just keeps on giving.

But there is cautious signs for riel optimism.

Andi Hope Labor says it's important to be cautious.

Well, I think it's right that we give people hope because it's been a terrible year felt for everyone, and we want some light at the end of the tunnel.

But equally, we can't afford to send the message out that the virus is big because it certainly isn't.

And we know it's gonna be a considerable amount of time, possibly six months or more, before everyone will be vaccinated.

And that's really the point that we need to get to before we can be confident that we've actually got over this.

A leading scientist believes this may be one of sciences, finest hours, but the whole scientific response to this pandemic has been quite extraordinary.

I mean, the very fact that it was identified and sequence within weeks of it becoming clinically apparent all the way through to developing the diagnostics, and I mean, it's been difficult to roll them out.

But the idea that you could go from an unknown infection to a sequenced virus to a diagnostic to a vaccine in this period is quite unprecedented.

It wouldn't have been possible even five or 10 years ago, a crisp feel to the air on reassuring sites on our streets but still some way to go until normal life returns.

That was Nick.

What?

And joining us now, Professor Sir John Bell Regis, chair of medicine at Oxford University, who sits on the UK Vaccines Task Force on Lord Robert Winston Labor Peer and professor of science and society at Imperial College, London.

It's great to have you both s, Sir John.

I'm going to start with you.

It does feel like Oxford's Day today and the PM said, this is our route out of the pandemic.

Is that how you feel now?

Well, I I as you know, I'm quite optimistic that we'll get ourselves out of trouble sometime over the course of the next few months.

I've made the prediction is spring before things start to appear to be normal again, and I think that's about the right timing.

We've got three vaccines now.

We've got mass testing, which appears to work pretty well.

We've got a lot of we've got a lot of arrows in the quiver that we could shoot.

So I'm fairly optimistic that things will start to move in the right direction Now, Were you always optimistic, or am I right in thinking that At one point you had doubts that you would ever get here.

Well, I wasn't sure we were going to get a vaccine.

If you want to know the honest truth, I always put the odds of that of being 50% because it's hard to make vaccines to respiratory pathogens.

This was not a given on the way things were bumping along at the beginning.

It wasn't clear that the testing was gonna go well.

Therapies were hard to find it.

It was a bad time last spring.

But I think now we've got reason to be optimistic.

Let me ask you to explain this the 70% versus the 90% effectiveness, which I think ah, lot of people might be confused by.

We've heard with fighter with modern of the other vaccines that there is a higher rate now.

Presumably, people won't be given a choice, will they?

When the vaccine comes round, or if you could choose between higher efficacy but lower side effects?

How does that work s just to be clear, the Pfizer vaccine and the Madonna vaccines air terrific vaccines, their brand new platform, and I think the level of efficacy they achieved is extraordinary and terrific.

But the truth is you don't need that kind of efficacy.

Have an effective vaccine, the flu vaccines running out about 60% efficacy.

So you know you don't need to get there.

And I think the most important thing about the vaccine Theo Oxford after Seneca Vaccine is that when we looked at people both with the low dose and the high dose both the 70% which is the high dose high dose and the 90% which the low dose high dose and we looked for people who developed severe disease, we didn't have any in either group.

So it's highly effective at preventing people from being admitted to hospital with bad disease, which is what we intended toe have in the first place.

So way could have a theoretical argument about one why one is better than the other.

But the truth is, they're both pretty good at doing what we want him to dio Lord Winston that this looks like the bet has paid off.

This is pretty much vindication of the whole strategy, isn't it?

Well, it's certainly a remarkable achievement.

There's no doubt about that, and it's congratulations to Oxford and the other universities.

I think one of the really interesting things is that this is one of the first times that we've seen in recent years.

And I can remember where University University is really, in fact taking things right through to our product, which is then actually capable of used for health care.

Usually this is done by big farmer and other companies.

So this is This is amazing, too, for academic sector.

But I'm I'm a bit concerned about the risk of humorous about the risk of being over optimistic.

I think the problem is not that the scientists, I think science is great.

But I regret to say that when you look back over the last eight or nine months, the government has not really being trusted and it still isn't trusted.

It's not.

It's interested in messaging, but it's not interested in communication.

I think that's a really problem because so much of the time we're getting top down messages which aren't really intelligible on.

We've seen a series of debacles.

For example, we've seen testing trace, which was a shambles.

We've seen problems with healthcare workers being exposed unnecessarily to the virus and so on.

And I think that's a real problem now because there are a lot of young people who are really very, very skeptical on somewhat suspicious.

And so we've got to do something about that because, of course, skeptical to the point where they wouldn't take the vaccine.

Is that your fear?

Well, I think there are a lot of anti vax is around you, and you have to look out the social media to see that that's a That's a problem for Start.

But I suppose one of the issues, of course, is that you know there's a there's an ethical difference.

A Sir John will tell you between giving a vaccine from giving a normal drug, because with the vaccine you're treating a vast number of people, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even mawr.

But of course, those are, well, people that not being treated for an illness that they've yet got.

So there's a big issue.

We saw that with MMR.

Actually, to some extent, I mean, that was a long time ago way history relates.

What what happened there?

Sir John, the PM said that this is never going to be mandatory, so Do you have that same concern?

How do you make people want it?

Do you?

I mean, I think the Australian airline Qantas has said for example, it will be a necessity for flying with them.

Is that how you do it?

Do you make employers insist on it?

Head teachers insist on it s so I'm I'm very firmly against manned ation.

I think manned ation is not a good way Thio bring people along with you.

I mean it.

It works well in some societies, but it doesn't work well here, nor would it work in North America.

So I think you do have to persuade people to come along.

Having said that, we may get to a position where it's necessary in order to control transmission, to know who's protected from developing the disease and who isn't.

And that protection could come in one of two ways.

One is you could have had the disease.

And I think there's now increasing evidence that if you've had the disease on you've had a positive PCR test, then you are protected against the disease for a period of time, and I'll leave that open.

But it's probably at least six months, probably a year, and then if you get a vaccine, you'll be protected against the disease.

So it may be necessary for some activities to require people to be able to show that they are protected against the disease or have recently had a test in order for that to go back to relatively normal functions.

So I I think that all this has to play out the big issues now relate, really.

And I think Lord Winston has hit the nail on the head.

A lot of this is policy related.

Now it's How do you implement the best approach to getting this all across that finished science has sort of done its job, but it can't operate on its own.

It's gotta operate in a policy framework.

So it's over.

Teoh, professor of science and society, the behavior on what that involves.

How confident are you, then, that this rollout can be I Don't you call me a labor peer?

I do take the whip just about, but I must have to say to you that I do feel quite.

I think independently that the government has certainly over promised and under performed, and I think That's a big problem here.

Because, of course, if we I mean, inevitably, you're going to get some people with the worst side effects and others with any kind of any kind of medication, however simple, even aspirin.

So the risk, of course, is that the U.

N.

Start to really create mistrust as the rumors go around.

And I think that's a big problem.

Because, of course, you could disturb a lot of people who are already very, very anxious about a highly puzzling disease which has so many different faces attacking so many different organs in different people.

I wonder what the answer to that is that you can't you can't stop people talking about side effects.

If, of course, we can't and we shouldn't.

That's the point.

I don't think we should.

But I think you know what we can learn from history.

We've seen nuclear power was very badly handled because we lied about the risk of emissions radio activity with MMR.

Of course, we really didn't get the message across with the measles.

Vaccine on with cotton mouth and with BSE with genetically modified crops is a wonderful example of a really good technology which we mishandled with very poor communication and also commercial interests in that particular case s.

So I think we have to be aware that we've got to be really a bit more.

We've got to be not the scientist.

I think everybody has to be modest on, actually.

Just be.

I mean, I don't think that means, for example, we stopped taking precautions simply because we've got a vaccine.

I think that's one of the issues we've got to think about.

Do you think it kind of put the same thought to you, Sir John, when we're now talking about Christmas and what that might entail and the start of sort of opening up getting a few families together and all the rest of it we don't know the exact details yet.

Does that seem to you like running before we can walk?

Given that we're so close?

Well, I I Look, I'm I'm of the view that we've got to be pretty cautious for the next little while.

It's gonna be some time before we get a significant number of the population immunized.

And you only have to look at how quickly this disease can spread to realize that we do have to try and keep the lid on this thing for a while longer.

Now, having said that, the population you know this the people in this country have had a really, really terrible year.

I'm really from February on, people have lost their jobs.

They they've had loved ones die.

They've been locked up in their homes.

They haven't been able to do the usual things that they do.

I mean, it's been pretty awful.

So I my view is that loosening it up for a few days over Christmas will undoubtedly lead to a bit of an increase in the transmission of the disease.

But, you know, I think there's a point at which you probably have toe let it loose a bit in order to keep people going through until March or April.

Okay.

Thank you both very much indeed.

Thanks for coming in.