Coronavirus vaccine a year off, says UK medical chief Chris Whitty

UK chief medical officer Chris Whitty has dismantled Australia’s hopes for a coronavirus vaccine early next year.

UK Government chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance and England’s chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty outside 10 Downing Street, central London in March. Picture: AFP

Australia’s hopes for a coronavirus vaccine early next year to do away with damaging internal and external border restrictions have been dismantled by the frank assessment of the UK’s chief medical officer.

Professor Chris Whitty told reporters on the weekend that there was unlikely to be any vaccine before the end of next year, pushing out the hopes of Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and state premiers that a safe vaccine could be ready in 2021.

While Australia has taken a strict response to dealing with coronavirus by shutting its borders, and adopting a quasi-elimination approach, it leaves the country highly vulnerable to both the virus’ impacts and prolonged economic pain unless a vaccine is safely developed within a short time frame.

But Prof Whitty said it would be “reasonable’’ to expect another year before a safe vaccine is proven and ready to be distributed.

Prof Whitty’s assessments are particularly apt because he is privy to the UK’s Oxford university/AstraZeneca vaccine trial. This is the vaccine development, currently in stage three, that Australia is pinning hopes on to be able to vaccinate the entire country.

Politicians in other countries in Europe, including France, Italy and Spain, which originally implemented tough lockdowns, have now decided to “live with the virus’’ and adopt local measures to keep hospital admission rates at manageable levels. That strategy has appeared to work as the virus is now filtering through younger populations and there are far fewer hospitalisations and deaths despite a rise in infections. Interestingly, Sweden, which didn’t impose any lockdowns or mask usage, hasn’t had the same uptick in cases that other European countries are experiencing during the northern summer holiday season.

Prof Whitty said: “I would obviously be delighted if a vaccine came earlier rather than later but I’d be quite surprised if we had a highly effective vaccine ready for mass use in a large percentage of the population before the end of (northern hemisphere) winter, certainly before this side of Christmas.”

He added: “I think it is unlikely we will have a vaccine that is highly effective and ready to deploy at scale this (northern hemisphere) winter meaning 2020/21. I think there is a reasonable chance that we will have vaccines, not a certainty, in the period before the following northern hemisphere winter of 2021/22.”

Prof Whitty said: “A lot of people are doing a huge amount scientifically, logistically to make sure that’s a pessimistic statement, to try and see if we can get a vaccine at extraordinarily fast speed, but we have to check it works and we have to make sure it’s safe.

“So I think if we look forward a year, the chances are much greater than if we look forward six months.

“We should plan on the basis we will not have a vaccine and then if one does prove to be effective and safe and available, we’re in a strong position to be able to use it.’’

Prof Whitty said while he was confident “in the long-term in the ability of science to get us out of this hole’’ he stressed it wouldn’t happen in the coming weeks or months.