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Dr Liam Fox
(North Somerset) (Con)
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Can my right hon. Friend give us a little more information about the rise in hospitalisations that he mentioned? Of those who are being hospitalised, how many are in the younger age group who were not yet eligible for the vaccine, and how many are above that age—in other words, those who were able to get the vaccine but chose not to?
Matt Hancock
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My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. The answer is that the majority are in the younger age group who have not yet had the chance to be vaccinated. Just under one fifth of those going into hospital in the last week have had both jabs, about a fifth have had one jab and the majority have not had any. The majority are under the age of 50 and have not yet had the opportunity to have both jabs. I think there is a material difference when it comes to the state’s responsibility to offer the vaccine to all adults. The duty that we have when somebody has not been offered the vaccine is greater than the duty we have when we have offered a vaccine but somebody has chosen not to take it up. There is a material difference between those two situations that I think my right hon. Friend was getting at.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
(South Northamptonshire) (Con)
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May I just take what our right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said one step further? If I choose not to have, say, a yellow fever jab when I am going to a place that suffers yellow fever, the Government of the United Kingdom take no interest whatever in my illness status. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says that he has less of a duty, surely what he means is that he has no duty at all. It is for people to take up the vaccine.
Matt Hancock
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Up to a point, and the point is that, should that be taken as an absolute principle, there is a challenge should there be an overwhelming demand on the NHS that would impact on others. Of course, with a communicable disease, there is an impact on others in terms of spreading the disease, so we do have to have an eye to that. That is why I phrased it as I did, but in terms of my right hon. Friend’s argument, I think she and I concur on the broad thrust of the case being made.
So basically saying that if you don’t have a vaccine and get sick the State / NHS has no duty of care. I presume that means smokers and alcoholics or anyone engaged in dangerous sports should also not expect a duty of care?
For a virus with a very low sickness / death rate. That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense.
Plus all the lies about ‘get vaccinated and we will give you freedom’ when so far that hasn’t happened for anyone, and other countries are slowly dropping requirements it makes me wonder what the actual fuck is really going on.