THIS Morning’s Holly & Phil hosted Jonathan Van Tam on the sofa for a vaccine grilling today.
The deputy chief medical officer was quizzed by the daytime telly’s top hosts today – and revealed he cried tears of joy when he heard about the vaccine being safe.
He said this morning that anti-vaxxer conspiracies were “nonsense” and people shouldn’t give them any airline at all.
Professor Van Tam got into a spat with the PM last night over whether social distancing and mask-wearing would have to continue into the future.
Clarifying his remarks today, he said Brits will likely carry on wearing keep them and using hand sanitizer – even when the danger of the pandemic is gone.
But he stressed that social distancing will eventually be done with.
He stressed “we will never eradicate coronavirus” but urged Brits to take the jab if they want their dreams of a return to normal life to come true.
Asked by Trending In The News when Covid measures could end, he said the bug is likely to “be with human kind forever” and will become a “seasonal problem.”
His remarks came after Britain became the first country in the world to give a Covid jab the green light.
Experts deem the Belgium-made Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine safe, meaning a rollout to millions of people can now begin.
About 800,000 older people, care home workers and vulnerable people will be able to get access to the vaccine from next week, and millions across December.
Prof Van-Tam said he did not think we would soon be able to have a “massive party, throw our masks and hand sanitiser away and say it’s behind us like the end of the war”.
But Prime Minister Boris Johnson then appeared to correct him in a bust-up live on air saying he had “high hopes” the vaccine would allow life to return to normal.
