Markus Andrews

Visitors will have to take tests before each meeting and wear personal protective equipment (PPE) including face-coverings, but will be permitted to hold hands with their relative or friend.The move follows months of calls for elderly and chronically ill residents of care homes to be freed from effective isolation from their loved ones.Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “I know how important visiting a loved one is and I’m pleased we will soon be in a position for people to be carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes.“This is just the first step to getting back to where we want to be. We need to make sure we keep the infection rate down, to allow greater visiting in a step-by-step way in the future.”The move came after Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford announced that stay-at-home orders in the principality are to be extended for another three weeks to 15 March, to allow a safe return to school for the youngest pupils from Monday.Mr Drakeford said further easing of restrictions was under consideration in time for Easter, including welcoming back tourism.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayThe prime minister’s long-awaited blueprint for easing lockdown in England is expected to offer only limited relaxation of restrictions in the coming weeks, with schools likely to be told to open their doors to more children on 8 March.Shops, pubs and restaurants will be told to wait longer to readmit customers, with representatives of the hospitality sector telling The Independent that Mr Johnson will not name even an indicative date for reopening. He is instead expected to say that the timing of relaxations will depend on “data not dates”, with further steps driven by the rate of vaccinations, reduced infections and hospitalisations and falls in the crucial R rate of reproduction of the disease.Labour warned today that the jobs of more than a million people working in the hospitality industry are on the line if the government fails to extend furlough for as long as restrictions remain.Shadow business minister Lucy Powell called on Mr Johnson to extend the job retention scheme beyond its expiry date of 31 March, as well as confirming that companies will not lose emergency reliefs on business rates and VAT payments.“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have presided over the worst economic crisis of any major economy,” said Ms Powell. “They need to back our businesses and support jobs as the vaccine is rolled out, to secure our economy and get Britain back on the road to recovery.”It would be economic negligence for them to stand by and watch businesses go to the wall.”Latest figures showed that 16,875,536 Britons have received their first dose of coronavirus vaccine, with 589,591 receiving the second booster jab.The R figure fell to between 0.6 and 0.9 – its lowest since May – while the daily tally of 533 deaths and 12,027 positive tests meant that seven-day totals for fatalities were down 27.7 per cent and for infections 20.3 per cent compared to the previous week.The decline in cases, along with the offer of vaccinations to all of England’s care home residents and staff, informed the decision to relax restrictions on visits.From 8 March, each care home resident will be able to nominate one individual for repeated indoor visits, under carefully designed conditions to keep residents, staff and visitors safe.All visitors will receive a rapid-turnaround lateral flow test and be required to follow all infection prevention and control measures.Close contact care will continue to be restricted to visitors who provide assistance – such as help dressing, eating or washing – which is essential to the immediate health and wellbeing of a resident under exceptional circumstances.Outdoor, pod and screen visits will be able to continue in line with the published guidance which has been in place during lockdown, meaning there will be chances for residents to see more than just the one person they nominate.The chief nurse for adult social care, Professor Deborah Sturdy, said: “I know how much people want to visit, hug and kiss their loved ones but doing so can put lives at risk so we would ask people to continue to follow the rules.“This is a first step towards resuming indoor visits and we all hope to be able to take further steps in the future. I am pleased as a result of so many people following the rules we are in a position to increase visits and hope this is just the start.”Labour’s shadow care minister Liz Kendall said: “For the last seven months, backed by Labour and charities, families have been calling for care home visits to start again and to be treated as keyworkers with access to all the PPE and testing they need. “Over this period ministers have repeatedly failed to grasp how important families are for the physical and mental health of care home residents, and the appalling impact preventing visits has caused. “Never again must families be denied the right to visit their loved ones in care homes. To have any confidence that things will really change, we need legislation to enshrine residents’ rights to visits and end the scandal of blanket visiting bans.” More

Boris Johnson is poised to break his promise to give MPs a vote before a “catastrophic” £4bn-a-year cut to overseas aid begins, angry campaigners say.Parliament was told that legislation would be brought forward, but that is now not expected to happen until July – yet the huge spending reductions will begin from April.Ministers have shelved the vote despite Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, admitting that ploughing ahead without passing a bill leaves the government open to a legal challenge.The cut – which breaks a Tory election pledge – will lead to 100,000 preventable deaths, Mr Raab has been warned, and it has been branded “a colossal blow” by Joe Biden’s new aid chief.Andrew Mitchell, the former Conservative international development secretary, branded the government’s stance “pernicious and shabby” and said it was “worried about losing a vote”.And Sarah Champion, the chair of the Commons International Development Committee, told The Independent: “The government is breaking its promise and going back on its word.”It is thought Mr Johnson is delaying to try to avoid an embarrassing row before he hosts the G7 summit in June – but campaigners are already threatening huge protests, if Covid restrictions allow.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayMr Raab promised the vote back in November, when he admitted the “temporary” cut from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of national income – necessary because of the economic crisis, he argued – might become permanent.Telling MPs he could not “predict” when the cut would be reversed, the foreign secretary said: “We have taken advice very carefully on this.“It is very clear that, if we cannot see a path back to 0.7 per cent in the foreseeable, immediate future – and we cannot plan for that – then the legislation would require us to change it.“We would almost certainly face a legal challenge if we do not very carefully follow it.”However, plans for a vote last month were abandoned – and Mr Raab then unveiled the details of cuts to go down to the 0.5 per cent figure, to begin in six weeks.With much of the budget already allocated, only around £3.5bn is left for direct aid projects, a staggering cut of 60 per cent from 2019 described as “catastrophic” by Ms Champion.The Labour MP added: “Such a significant cut must be properly debated and voted on in parliament – it is our job.“This cynical political game has real consequences. Lives are at stake, education hangs in the balance, and the rights of women and girls could go back to the dark ages across the Global South.”Mr Mitchell added: “The 0.7 per cent promise was made by every MP: it’s a promise the government must keep, or put to a vote in Parliament.”And Stephanie Draper, head of the Bond network which coordinates more than 400 aid groups, said they had been “left blind as to which aid programmes are being cut, by how much and how these decisions are being made”.“The way the cuts to UK aid are happening is shocking. No legislation has been passed, but decisions on what to cut appear to be going ahead regardless,” she said. Samantha Powers, the new head of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), sharply criticised the cut in evidence to a committee of MPs last month.Bemoaning the UK leaving behind its “desire to change the world for the better”, she warned of “a colossal blow to international peace and security”.A spokesperson said: “We are looking at this carefully and take our obligations very seriously. We’ll set out more details on the next steps in due course.”Around £5bn would be slashed from aid between 2020 and 2025 anyway, because the UK’s shrinking economy means 0.7 per cent is worth less.But the reduction to spending only 0.5 per cent of income – taking the UK below France, Germany and even Turkey – is expected to swipe at least £20bn more, over five years. More

Apart from the welcome spirit of internationalism, the announcement that Britain’s forthcoming “surplus” of Covid vaccines will be distributed to developing countries is significant in other ways. Given that the vaccination programme is not yet complete, although proceeding smoothly, it seems premature to be distributing doses that do not yet exist. The only pressing need to announce such a thing would seem to be the imminent (next Friday) G7 summit in Washington. Britain, post-Brexit, needs to demonstrate that it has a role in the world, and the rapid “world-beating” vaccine rollout provides an irresistible temptation to indulge in “vaccine diplomacy”. Like China and Russia, but pointedly unlike the European Union, Britain can also be seen to be able to win friends and influence people globally, and save lives into the bargain. Recent spats between London and Brussels over vaccine supply probably made shipments from the UK to Europe politically impossible. The vaccines are headed for villages in Malawi rather than Bavaria, and it is difficult to argue it should be the other way around. So Britain, in the personage of Boris Johnson, wants to strut its stuff on the world stage. It is probably inevitable that a post-imperial power that retains its “Global Britain” mindset should crave to be seen to still count for something. The UK will host the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November, having hosted June’s G7 in Cornwall. Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, is busily trying to get Britain into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and win trade deals with emerging powers such as India. Britain has resumed its individual seat at the World Trade Organisation, and is establishing itself as the lead in mapping the DNA of coronavirus variants. More

EU to allow data to continue to flow to UKThe appointment of the UK’s chief EU negotiator as a Cabinet minister shows that Brexit talks are not over, a former diplomat has warned.Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK’s permanent representative to the EU from 2013 until 2017, said David Frost’s move to the Cabinet suggested that there would be an “ongoing and permanent negotiation” with the EU.It came as the European Commission pledged to find pragmatic solutions to trade disruption in Northern Ireland, with the formation of a consultative group for struggling Belfast businesses.Meanwhile, the SNP have been accused of being “clearly rattled” over the prospect of Alex Salmond’s claims about Nicola Sturgeon being published as part of the inquiry into the handling of harassment complaints against the former first minister.MSPs have agreed to allow Mr Salmond’s controversial submission, which accuses Ms Sturgeon of misleading parliament, to be made public.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayShow latest update
1613746500Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has more details below on Boris Johnson’s G7 speech:Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 14:551613745913Johnson urges world leaders to ensure whole world is vaccinatedBoris Johnson has urged world leaders to work together to ensure that the whole world is vaccinated against coronavirus, with jabs distributed at cost.In a speech at a virtual meeting of G7 leaders, Mr Johnson said: “Science is finally getting the upper hand on Covid, which is a great, great thing and long overdue.“But there is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations – we’ve got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it’s no use one country being far ahead of another, we’ve got to move together.”He added: “So, one of the things that I know that colleagues will be wanting to do is to ensure that we distribute vaccines at cost around the world – make sure everybody gets the vaccines that they need so that the whole world can come through this pandemic together.”Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 14:451613744962ICYMI: MPs urge ministers to deliver on promise to ban gay conversion therapyMPs have urged Boris Johnson’s government to “prioritise” delivering on previous commitments, such as banning the practice of gay conversion therapy, ahead of the Queen’s Speech.Sir Bernard Jenkins, chair of the Commons Liaison Committee, highlighted on Friday a number of issues raised by MPs which were “awaiting time in the government’s legislative programme”.Our political correspondent, Ashley Cowburn, has the full story below:Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 14:291613743422Hancock acted unlawfully over Covid contract details, High Court judge rulesHealth secretary Matt Hancock acted unlawfully by failing to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts in a timely way, a High Court judge has ruled.The Good Law Project took legal action against the Department of Health and Social Care for its “wholesale failure” to disclose details of contracts agreed during the pandemic.Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has more details below on this breaking story:Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 14:031613742865Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has joined MI6 in paying tribute to LGBT+ members of the intelligence community after the chief of the secret service issued a public apology for the agency’s past treatment of LGBT+ people.Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 13:541613742133Union launches judicial review over PM’s decision on Patel bullying caseThe union which represents civil servants has started a judicial review seeking to overturn Boris Johnson’s decision that Priti Patel did not breach the ministerial code with her behaviour towards department staff.Mr Johnson stood by the home secretary last year, going against the judgement of his adviser Sir Alex Allan – who found her behaviour had amounted to bullying and been in breach of the code.In a statement announcing the judicial review process, FDA general secretary Dave Penman said: “In November, the prime minister made the extraordinary decision that the home secretary did not breach the ministerial code, despite clear evidence that she bullied civil servants.“As the union that represents many of the staff who work day to day with ministers, we cannot simply let this issue rest.“Civil servants should expect to work with ministers without fear of being bullied or harassed.”Mr Penman added: “Our judicial review, launched today, would seek to overturn the prime minister’s decision that the home secretary’s conduct did not breach the ministerial code.“This is not about whether the home secretary should be forced to resign – that is a matter for the prime minister – this is simply about how the ministerial code is interpreted.”Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 13:421613740794Labour praises ‘landmark judgement’ for Uber workersLabour’s shadow employment rights secretary has described a ruling that Uber must classify its drivers as workers rather than self-employed as a “landmark judgement”.“This is a hugely important ruling with significant implications for the gig economy. Uber drivers and all gig economy workers should get basic rights at work, including decent pay, safety and job security,” Andy McDonald said in a statement.“The landmark judgement is also testament to the hard work of the ADCU and GMB trade unions and drivers who have brought about this action.”He added: “Increasing numbers of workers are engaged on exploitative zero hours and insecure contracts. The Supreme Court has sent a very clear message that companies should not game the system by undercutting the rights of their employees.”Our business reporter, Ben Chapman, has more details on the story below:Conrad Duncan19 February 2021 13:191613739700Man charged with threatening MPs including Corbyn over emailA man has been charged with sending threatening emails to MPs, including calling former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a “terrorist” and warning others they faced being assassinated.Alleged victims include former speaker John Bercow, former home secretary Amber Rudd, former attorney general Dominic Grieve QC, one-time London mayoral candidate and ex-Cabinet minister Rory Stewart, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, ex-Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and the parties current leader Sir Ed Davey.Paul Ritchie has been charged with nearly 30 counts of sending a letter, communication or article conveying a threatening message against a series of politicians, court documents show.My colleague Liam James reports:Sam Hancock19 February 2021 13:011613738799MI6 apologises for past treatment of LGBT+ peopleOver in MI6, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service has issued a public apology for the agency’s past treatment of LGBT+ people.Richard Moore said that a security bar on LGBT+ individuals serving in the intelligence agencies, which remained in place until 1991, was “wrong, unjust and discriminatory”.In a video statement posted on Twitter, Mr Moore, known in Whitehall as C, said it had resulted in the lives of committed professionals being blighted while others were denied a chance to serve.Mr Moore also said it was down to a “misguided” belief that LGBT+ people were more susceptible to blackmail.He paid tribute to the “extraordinary resilience and loyalty” shown to MI6 by LGBT+ staff past and present, saying the service still had more to do to be a fully inclusive employer and that his goal was to make it “a workplace where you can always bring your true self to work”.Sam Hancock19 February 2021 12:461613737428Lib Dems: ‘Johnson must send poorer nations spare vaccines now’The Liberal Democrats have urged the government not to wait until the whole population has received their jabs to start distributing supplies to developing countries.The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran said: “A trickle-down approach to global vaccine distribution risks prolonging the pandemic, giving vaccine-resistant variants a chance to mutate.“Britain must show global leadership and commit to a parallel rollout – it is both the right and smart thing to do.”It comes after Boris Johnson pledged to donate the majority of Britain’s surplus vaccines to poorer nations in the run up to today’s virtual G7 meeting.Sam Hancock19 February 2021 12:23 More

Boris Johnson has called on leaders of the G7 major powers to “make sure the whole world is vaccinated” and ensure that all countries “move together” out of the pandemic.Mr Johnson was addressing leaders including US president Joe Biden as he hosted a virtual summit of the group of rich industrialised countries.He also called on the G7 nations – also including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada – to join together in focusing on the need for action to stem global warming.And he welcomed Mr Biden’s decision to recommit the US to the Paris Agreement on climate change, after his predecessor Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 accord.Today’s discussion was being held by video link because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Mr Johnson said he hoped to welcome the leaders to the UK in June for the full annual G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall.Speaking after the UK gave first doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 16m people – more than in any other G7 state – Mr Johnson said: “Science is finally getting the upper hand on Covid, which is a great, great thing and long overdue.“But there is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations – we’ve got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it’s no use one country being far ahead of another, we’ve got to move together.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekday“So, one of the things that I know that colleagues will be wanting to do is to ensure that we distribute vaccines at cost around the world – make sure everybody gets the vaccines that they need so that the whole world can come through this pandemic together.”Mr Johnson called on his fellow leaders to step up action on climate change at the UN Cop26 summit which the UK will host in Glasgow in November.“I think that this is the right moment for us all to focus on the other great natural challenge about which we’ve been warned time and time and time again,” he said.“We can’t ignore it – the warnings have been even clearer than they were for Covid – and that is the problem of climate change, and that’s why we’re going to be working very hard to get some great things done at G7 on our plans for the Cop26 summit that we are holding along with our Italian friends in Glasgow in November.“It’s great, by the way, that Joe has brought the United States back into the Paris climate change accords – a great step forward.” More

The SNP has attacked the “bewildering” decision to allow the publication of Alex Salmond’s claims about first minister Nicola Sturgeon ahead of his expected appearance at a Holyrood inquiry next week.The party claimed the inquiry’s decision to publish Mr Salmond’s dossier could “jeopardise” the anonymity of women who were involved in the legal case against the former first minister.However, the committee of MSPs investigating the Scottish government’s botched handling of claims against Mr Salmond has made clear anonymity would still be protected.Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader at Holyrood, said the SNP’s “bizarre” response from the SNP showed party bosses were “clearly rattled” at the prospect of Mr Salmond’s evidence coming to light.“Their clear overreaction only confirms in people’s minds that they must have something to hide,” said Ms Davidson. “Nobody is suggesting for a second that information would ever be published jeopardising a complainant’s anonymity.”On Thursday the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) concluded that “on balance” it would be possible for Mr Salmond’s dossier – in which he alleges his predecessor broke the ministerial code – to be published.A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament said the document would be processed “ahead of publication early next week”, and Mr Salmond would be invited to appear at the committee on Wednesday.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayThe SNP responding through a statement from MSP George Adam, the party’s chief whip at Holyrood.“People across Scotland will be utterly bewildered that the corporate body of the national parliament has ignored clear legal advice and decided to publish information which it knows could jeopardise the court-ordered anonymity of complainants in a sexual offences case,” claimed Mr Adam.He added: “We have to ask the question of the corporate body members – if it had been their wife, their mother, their daughter or their sister at the centre of this, would they have made the same decision?” More

Mr Justice Chamberlain was ruling on a legal challenge brought by three opposition MPs and the Good Law Project over contracts running into hundreds of millions of pounds to supply face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE), which were awarded without competition. He found that Mr Hancock should have complied with government transparency principles requiring the publication of details of contracts within 30 days. And he said in his ruling that the health secretary had spent £207,000 of taxpayers’ money fighting the case.The Department of Health insisted it had been working “on very short timescales and against a background of unparalleled global demand” to deliver PPE to the healthcare frontline and was publishing details about contracts awarded “as soon as possible”.A ruling released by the High Court found: “There is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the Secretary of State breached his legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices (CANs) within 30 days of the award of contracts.” The ruling stated: “The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020. The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.”The judge said that if government had complied with its legal obligations, anyone concerned “would have been able to scrutinise CANs and contract provisions, ask questions about them and raise any issues with oversight bodies”.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayThe Good Law Project and MPs Debbie Abrahams (Labour), Caroline Lucas (Green) and Layla Moran (Lib Dem) brought the judicial review in relation to contracts worth £252m to Ayanda Capital, £108m to Clandeboye Agencies and £313m to Pestfix in April last year.They said that Ayanda was a tiny company created by an associate of a minister which had been given preferential “VIP lane” treatment in award of the contract, and that £160m worth of the masks provided were unusable.Clandeboye had only previously supplied confectionary, while Pestfix – which also benefited from the VIP lane – had never before supplied medical PPE, they said.The ruling said it was clear that the time limit for publishing contrcts was breached in “a significant number of cases”.But the judge declined to order Mr Hancock to publish all remaining contracts, noting that the backlog was already being cleared and he was “moving close to complete compliance”.In a statement released following the judgement, the Good Law Project, led by barrister Jolyon Maugham, said: “When government eschews transparency, it evades accountability.“Government’s behaviour came under criticism in the judgment. “If it had admitted to being in breach of the law when we first raised our concerns, it would have never been necessary to take this judicial review to its conclusion. Instead, they chose a path of obfuscation, racking up over £200,000 of legal costs as a result.“We shouldn’t be forced to rely on litigation to keep those in power honest, but in this case it’s clear that our challenge pushed government to comply with its legal obligations.“Judge Chamberlain stated that the admission of breach by government was ‘secured as a result of this litigation and at a late stage of it’ and ‘I have no doubt that this claim has speeded up compliance’. “It begs the question, if we hadn’t brought this legal challenge, what other contract details would have remained hidden from view?”A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We have been working tirelessly to deliver what is needed to protect our health and social care staff throughout this pandemic, within very short timescales and against a background of unparalleled global demand.“This has often meant having to award contracts at speed to secure the vital supplies required to protect NHS workers and the public.“As the 2020 National Audit Office report recognised, all of the NHS providers audited were always able to get what they needed in time thanks to the effort of government, NHS, armed forces, civil servants and industry who delivered over 8 billion items of PPE to the frontline at record speed.“We fully recognise the importance of transparency in the award of public contracts and continue to publish information about contracts awarded as soon as possible.” More

Coronavirus vaccine passports are “feasible” but governments must address a series of “demanding” criteria before they are introduced – including ethical concerns, experts have concluded. The report – published in the Royal Society – comes after minister Nadhim Zahawi suggested the UK could facilitate documents for overseas travel if countries requested vaccine status as a condition of entry.Professor Melinda Mills, the director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford and lead author of the report, told a briefing on Friday: “We concluded it’s feasible but not all the pieces are in place yet.”The professor outlined 12 criteria that should be met before vaccine passports are introduced, including the requirement of authorities to “clearly define” how they will be used to avoid the risk of them being used to “unjustly discriminate” in many areas of life.“How would a vaccine passport certificate be used? Will it be for international travel? Medical uses, for getting a job, attending a football match, or buying some milk? It’s these kinds of questions.”The authors of the study added: “Current evidence and precedents suggests that a Covid-19 vaccine passport is feasible, but that not all criteria have yet been satisfied and consideration should be given to what longer-term precedents this may create”.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayThey stressed a “broader discussion” was needed about some of the key aspects of the document, such as the need for legal standards, alongside conversations about data privacy.Among the 12 criteria the experts outlined, it states passports if used for overseas travel must be internationally standardised, have verifiable credentials, and meet legal and ethical standards, including guarding against discrimination.Professor Christopher Dye, another author of the report and professor of epidemiology at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, went on: “An effective vaccine passport system that would allow the return to pre-Covid-19 activities, including travel, without compromising personal or public health, must meet a set of demanding criteria – but it is feasible.“First there is the science of immunity, then the challenges of something working across the world that is durable, reliable and secure. There are the legal and ethical issues and if you can crack all that, you have to have the trust of the people.”Professor Dye said “huge progress” has been made towards addressing some of the challenges, but added: “We are not there yet”.“At the most basic level, we are still gathering data on exactly how effective each vaccine is in preventing infection and transmission and on how long the immunity will last.” More