While multiple comparisons are made between the Covid-19 pandemic and the film
Contagion
, directed by Steven Soderbergh in 2011, British Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock told LBC radio on Wednesday (February 3), to have been inspired by the feature film disaster to set up the vaccination strategy of the United Kingdom.
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The film in question traces the devious and brutal journey of a virus originating in Hong Kong and responsible for a global epidemic.
If the fiction seems close to our reality, it is above all the process implemented to fight the epidemic that caught Hancock's attention:
“We see that the moment of greatest tension around the vaccination program is not isn't until it's rolled out - when scientists and manufacturers are working together at a sustained pace - it's then when it needs to be prioritized, ”he
explains.
Not modest, the Secretary of State specifies that he
"insisted that we order enough so that each adult has his two doses
"
.
"
We also asked for scientific advice on prioritization very early on and presented our project to the public for the first time in August or September, so that there was not a big debate on the order of priority,"
said he detailed on British radio.
Read also: Vaccination: the United Kingdom praises its "agility"
Anticipation policy
In an interview with ITV the same day, Matt Hancock explained that he
"watched the film, which is in fact based on advice from very serious epidemiologists"
and refers to the controversy surrounding the vaccine from the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, which opposes the European Union to the Swedish-British laboratory.
Accused last week of not wanting to use its British production sites for vaccines for Europe, Hancock came to the aid of the medical company:
“One of the things I did, at the start of the pandemic, was to insist that when we had the vaccine, backed by our government from the start, UK production would protect the people of the UK in the first place.
As British Secretary of Health, it was my duty, ”
he said.
Launched in December, the vaccination campaign across the Channel is, for the moment, a success.
The British were the first in the world to approve a vaccine and the milestone of ten million people who received a first injection was crossed on Wednesday.
What constitutes
"a very significant step"
, welcomed Matt Hancock on Twitter.
The United Kingdom, where the pandemic has caused more than 108,000 deaths and England has been strictly confined since January 4, is particularly counting on this vaccination campaign to bring the country out of its lethargic state.
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