‘A little p***k getting a little prick!’: Tory MP Johnny Mercer jokes as he volunteers for Covid vaccine trial despite ‘loathing needles and hospitals’
- Plymouth Moor View MP shared experience online and urged others to take part
- It comes as another UK vaccine hopeful was dealt a devastating blow today
- GlaxoSmithKline trials showed jab didn’t work well with middle-aged and elderly
Tory MP Johnny Mercer has volunteered for a covornavirus vaccine trial, despite his fear of needles and hospitals, describing the moment on social media as ‘a little p***k getting a little prick’.
The Plymouth Moor View representative’s jokey tweet was widely shared as he encouraged others to also take part in efforts to eliminate the virus.
Posting pictures of him receiving the jab, while wearing a face mask, he wrote: ‘A little p***k getting a little prick..
‘Today I volunteered at a stage three clinical trial for a Covid vaccine in Plymouth. I loathe needles and being in hospital but the wonderful team at @UHP_NHS made it all extremely palatable. Even for a wimp like me.
‘You can do it too.’
Tory MP Johnny Mercer has volunteered for a covornavirus vaccine trial, despite his fear of needles and hospitals, describing the moment on social media as ‘a little p***k getting a little prick’
The Plymouth Moor View representative posted pictures of him receiving the jab, while wearing a face covering, on Twitter
He wrote: ‘Today I volunteered at a stage three clinical trial for a Covid vaccine in Plymouth. I loathe needles and being in hospital but the wonderful team at @UHP_NHS made it all extremely palatable. Even for a wimp like me. You can do it too.’
It comes as a coronavirus vaccine hopeful invested in by the British Government was dealt a devastating blow today as manufacturers revealed it won’t be done until late 2021.
Clinical trials of the jab by GlaxoSmithKline and French company Sanofi showed that their jab did not appear to work well in middle-aged and elderly people.
These are the ones most at risk of dying from Covid-19 and therefore are a key group for any vaccine-maker to target. Full clinical trial information has not been published by the manufacturers said they were unhappy with the early results.
The UK in July secured 60million doses of the prospective treatment, but it was today announced that any jab will likely not be ready before the end of 2021.
It puts a dent in hopes that a more conventional vaccine could be developed to fight the pandemic.
Britain is currently rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, which uses cutting-edge technology but needs to be stored at ultra-low temperatures – throwing up a series of logistical problems in storing and distributing the jab.
GSK’s vaccine is based on the existing technology used to produce Sanofi’s seasonal flu vaccine, so should have been a reliable option for investors.
But the phase two trials – ones that look for an immune response before testing whether the jab actually protects against coronavirus – have not gone well.
An employee works on a production line at the factory of British multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, northern France
Elsewhere today, Government scientists said the UK’s coronavirus reproduction rate has risen for the first time since October — but official data shows infections fell again in the first week of December.
SAGE, Number 10’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, estimates the R number across Britain is between 0.9 and 1.0, having risen from 0.8 and 1.0 a week ago.
The group said it was no longer confident the R — which represents the average number of people each Covid-19 patient passes the disease to — is below the crucial number of 1.0, particularly in London and the South East.
Getting the reproduction value below 1.0 is crucial because it signals the epidemic is in retreat. An R of one suggests every 10 infected people spread it to 10 others.
However, SAGE’s R rate modelling lags by about to to three weeks which means the data more accurately represents the average situation in mid-November rather than the present day. The group uses hospitalisation and death rates to give a more accurate estimate, and it takes weeks for Covid-19 patients to fall seriously ill after catching the virus.
In more positive news, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found infections dropped by nearly 10 per cent in the final week of the second national lockdown.
It estimates 481,500 patients had the disease in the seven days up to December 5, down from 521,300 the week prior (8 per cent).
It was the third week in a row that weekly infections dropped after reaching an all-time high of 664,700 in the seven days to November 14.
The 481,500 weekly case figure means that about one in 115 people in England were carrying the coronavirus at any given time at the start of December.