UK Parliament / Open data

Coronavirus

Proceeding contribution from Steve Brine (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 16 June 2021. It occurred during Debates on delegated legislation on Coronavirus.

The right hon. Gentleman is right: we had a battle royal with influenza in the first year that I was in the job, but the difference was that we did not have any non-pharmaceutical interventions. Our interventions were about the take-up of the vaccine—yes, for children as well as for adults, especially the vulnerable. One of our chief advisers, the deputy chief medical officer then, one Professor Chris Whitty, never suggested masks, let alone closing schools—just a really good roll-out of the flu vaccine. We lost 22,000 people that year. Never were those numbers rolled on BBC News; never did we know the R number, but there was a point where we accepted an element of risk in society. I guess

that was the point of my earlier intervention on the hon. Gentleman: what element of risk is he prepared to accept? Because that is what it comes down to—our own mortality is part of the human condition.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
697 c336 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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