Sunderland immunologist hails Covid vaccine but fears impact of the anti-vax movement

An immunology expert has hailed the Covid vaccine announcement as a “fantastic step” but voiced fears that the anti-vax movement could hinder humanity’s best shot at defeating the pandemic.

Dr Jane Falconer, principal lecturer in immunology at the University of Sunderland, made the comments just days after Pfizer and BioNTech announced that its vaccine candidate was shown to be 90% effective after initial tests.

But this has been followed by concerns that the disinformation spread by anti-vaxxers could lead to people not getting vaccinated, meaning the Covid-19 virus will continue to spread.

Asked if this posed a risk in terms of beating the virus, Dr Falconer said: “Yes, I do think so. Defeating the pandemic requires a global response because when individual countries relax measures, it means the virus can spread to the rest of the world’s population.

“The only way of preventing the repeated rounds of infection is to have immunity. We don’t know whether the virus itself causes long-term immunity in patients. We haven’t had the pandemic in the population for long enough.

“A vaccine would mitigate against those individual countries’ issues. Most importantly, the vaccine will allow the vulnerable and the people who have been shielding to re-enter society.

“The anti-vaccination campaign massively affects that.”

She referred to the impact the campaign had on the UK losing its measles-free status, which it obtained from the World Health Organisation in 2017.

Dr Falconer added: “The importance of immunity is that it’s a form of shielding without isolating people and making them lonely. Globally and in the UK, we need older people and those with underlying conditions to emerge into the population.

“If anti-vaccination campaigns have an impact on rolling out the vaccines then those people will still be left in that isolated situation, which to me is really worrying.

“There’s nothing behind the anti-vaccination movement in terms of evidence – all vaccines have done is save countless of millions of lives and the evidence to the contrary is extremely weak.”

She called on the media to help people understand that the rapid production of the vaccine is not dangerous and was based on “tried and tested” experiments that have been used for similar infections.

“It is painful that our loved ones are confined to lives of loneliness at the moment and that’s going to be potentially impacted in the future by nonsense information,” Dr Falconer said.

“I believe in freedom of choice and I don’t think putting pressure on people is the best way but certainly I would love to take the opportunity to educate people on the number of millions of lives that have been saved across the world, as well as the pandemics that have never come about because of vaccinations.”

On the vaccine itself, Dr Falconer said she does not have any concerns about its effectiveness or safety but said the challenge was going to be its distribution.

It would need to be stored in temperatures between -70 and -80, which she said would not be an issue in the UK but could be in warmer countries.

She said: “I still think it sounds like a fantastic vaccine and there are others that are taking longer to develop which also look effective.

“I think we should be really optimistic. The population needs that optimism and I don’t think it’s misplaced at all. It’s a fantastic step and it’s happened more quickly than I anticipated at the beginning of the pandemic.”

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