Health Secretary Matt Hancock says he ‘can’t wait’ to scrap tier restrictions and that vaccine roll-out could mean they are lifted by end of MARCH
- Matt Hancock previously said he would snitch on neighbour’s breaking rules
- Now he says the vaccine’s early roll-out could end ‘these blasted restrictions’
- The first vaccinations were shipped to 50 locations around the UK this weekend
Britain ’s fast-track approval of the Covid vaccine means restrictions could be relaxed before the end of March, Matt Hancock said last night.
The Health Secretary said he ‘can’t wait to scrap this tiered system altogether’ and for the country to ‘get back to living by mutual respect and personal responsibility, not laws set in Parliament’.
His comments will surprise many MPs given Mr Hancock’s reputation as one of the Cabinet’s leading ‘lockdown doves’ in favour of the strictest possible measures to curb the virus spread.
Britain ’s fast-track approval of the Covid vaccine means restrictions could be relaxed before the end of March, Matt Hancock (pictured) said last night
Earlier this year he even declared he was ready to snitch on a neighbour breaking self-isolation rules.
But in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he signalled that the vaccine rollout could soon remove many of the anti-Covid measures.
Asked whether the start of administering the vaccine to Britons this week could bring about a quicker end to the restrictions in the first three months of next year, Mr Hancock said: ‘Yes it will.’
He also said: ‘There’s no doubt that having the vaccine early… will bring forward the moment when we can get rid of these blasted restrictions, but until then we have got to follow them. Help is on its way.’
The first vaccinations were being shipped to 50 locations around the UK this weekend ahead of the first inoculation in all four countries of the UK on Tuesday, on what Mr Hancock is calling ‘V Day’.
The Health Secretary said millions of doses of vaccine from Pfizer will be in the UK before the end of the year, while a second vaccine from Oxford University and drug firm AstraZeneca could win approval from the UK regulator before Christmas.
The Government now aims to vaccinate more than half of the UK’s vulnerable people by the end of February.
Mr Hancock added that the mass vaccination programme will also involve a large-scale Government advertising campaign, fronted by celebrities and other trusted voices, and launched before Christmas.