UK 'needs a plan B' to tackle Covid-19 pandemic warns Jeremy Hunt

The former Health Secretary made the comments despite the successful vaccine programme which has raised hopes of reopening society.

He told BBC Breakfast: “In November and early December we weren’t thinking about this Kent variant that arose and there will be other variants.”

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He pointed out that the vaccines minister had said in Parliament that there are 4,000 different mutations around the world, and it may well be that one of those is immune to the vaccines.

Mr Hunt told the programme: “We need to have a plan B that makes sure that having done all of this work with this brilliant vaccine programme, that is by far the most successful anywhere is Europe, that is not then undermined because we suddenly find ourselves subject to a new mutation that is immune to all these vaccines.”

Hunt added that a 10-year plan and sustained funding increase for the social care sector is needed because it goes hand-in-hand with the work being done in the NHS.

He told BBC Breakfast: “We need to be much better at looking after people at home so they don’t need to go into A&E.

“I think that if there is one thing that comes out of this pandemic that people would support very strongly is to say `let’s look at the incredible job done not just by the NHS frontline workers but by care workers’.”

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Clive Dix, chairman of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, said scientists were helping to “second guess” future mutations of coronavirus in order to create new potential vaccines.

Asked whether it was possible to produce a vaccine that was comprehensive at tackling new mutations, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “Yes, absolutely.

“The UK is properly at the forefront of surveying all of these variants.

“We have actually sequenced nearly 50% of all the virus that has been sequenced in this pandemic at the Sanger centre in Cambridge."