Top Covid doctor Jonathan Van-Tam finally gets his knighthood honour from Prince William for guiding UK through pandemic — after catching virus and missing ceremony in May
- JVT gained affection for his colourful analogies in public health messaging
- He was due to be knighted in May but missed the ceremony because of Covid
- Dr Jenny Harries was also made a Dame Commander for service to public health
Sir Jonathan Van-Tam today finally received his knighthood honour from Prince William for guiding the UK through the Covid pandemic.
England’s former deputy chief medical officer — lovingly dubbed ‘JVT’ — received the prestigious medal at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace this afternoon.
He was supposed to pick up the gong at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle in May but could not attend due to contracting Covid.
Picking up the honour, Sir Jonathan, an infectious disease expert, said the pandemic had been a ‘whirlwind’ and a time of ‘determined focus’
He gained the affection of the nation for his colourful football analogies in Covid public health messaging.
During the ceremony, Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, was also made a Dame Commander for her service to public health.
Like Sir Jonathan, she joined politicians during the national televised briefings during the pandemic in her then role as deputy chief medical officer.
Sir Jonathan Van-Tam today finally received his knighthood from Prince William for guiding the UK through the Covid pandemic
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam (left), the former deputy chief medical officer for England, gained affection for his colourful analogies in public health messaging. During the ceremony, Dr Jenny Harries (right), chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, was also made a Dame Commander for her service to public health
Britain must urgently build up stocks of a Covid drug that could be a lifesaver for half a million extremely vulnerable Britons, campaigners say.
Evusheld, developed by AstraZeneca, will allow people who were less likely to get an immune response from the Covid vaccines to return to normal life, they claim.
The twice-yearly injection was approved by drug regulators in March after a study showed it slashed the risk of falling will with Covid by nearly 80 per cent.
But the Department of Health and Social Care has not ordered a single dose — despite the therapy being used in the US and Israel for months.
Lord Mendelsohn, co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Vulnerable Groups to Pandemics, and the charity Blood Cancer UK have called on the Government to procure stocks as Covid cases and hospital admissions surge.
Evusheld, which costs £800 per dose, uses antibodies — immune proteins — that have been modified in a lab to make them last longer.
The drug was designed for people so immunocompromised they can’t muster their own immune response to Covid.
It comes as official figures show more than 400,000 vulnerable Brits are still shielding despite that guidance being axed in April.
Sir Jonathan, 57, announced his departure from public office in January this year during the height of the ‘Partygate’ scandal that piled pressure on Boris Johnson.
He resigned without a word of praise for the now-departing Prime Minister and just hours after the Tory leader apologised to the nation for boozing with 40 others in the garden of No 10.
Government sources insisted that his exit wasn’t related to ‘Partygate’, claiming that his time was ‘up’ because he had been ‘on loan’ to Whitehall since 2017.
Others saw his departure as a sign the worst of Covid was over.
He returned to academic work at the University of Nottingham in May, taking up the position of pro-vice chancellor for the faculty of medicine and health sciences.
Speaking at the ceremony, he said: ‘Looking back at the height of the pandemic, time has just compressed.
‘And it’s kind of very difficult to separate the beginning from where we are now, because it’s just been such a whirlwind, but it was really a time of kind of crazy, but determined focus.’
He praised colleagues in his former office as ‘absolutely superb’ and said: ‘Well, it’s always an honour and also very humbling to be recognised.
‘But I have to say it again, when you get this kind of thing, when you work in the kind of teams we’ve worked in over the last two-and-a-half years — you are standing on the shoulders of others.’
Professor Van Tam last month revealed he is no longer wearing a face mask, saying Britain has to learn to live the virus.
The newly-knighted scientist also dismissed hysteria that a recent uptick in Covid cases marks a new wave of the pandemic.
Professor Kevin Fenton, regional director, public health, NHS London, was made a CBE for services to public health.
His focus was the health of London and he also appeared on screen to deliver Covid messages.
He said: ‘It’s been a real privilege to be able to be the public health leader for this wonderful city of nine million people and have the responsibility of taking us all through the pandemic safely, to limit harm and to make sure we emerge on the other side.’
And Jordan Henderson, captain of Liverpool Football Club and an England player, was also awarded an MBE for services to his sport and charity.
Henderson won the FA and League Cups with Liverpool this season, has won more than 60 international caps and in April 2020 was an architect of the Players Together initiative that encouraged professional footballers to donate to the NHS.
How JVT’s colourful analogies helped the public understand the pandemic and made him a household name
Defensive midfielders
JVT, a fan of Boston United, likened the vaccination programme to defensive football players whose job it was to ‘watch everybody’s back’.
At a Downing Street press conference he said: ‘A bit like a football game where the strikers who score the wonder goals are the ones who make the headlines, actually, the hard yards are done by the defenders and by the defensive midfielders tracking back, tracking back for 90 minutes of the whole game, watching everybody’s back.
‘This is what it’s going to be about now, tracking back and making sure that we finish the job properly in the phase one cohorts before we move on.’
Grand National
He compared the pandemic to the Aintree horse race when he warned Britain could not fall at the final fence.
‘The vaccine effects are going to take three months until we see them properly, and until then no-one can relax,’ he told The Sun.
‘We are probably in the last few furlongs of this race – like in the Grand National. We just have a couple more fences, we have just got to stick with it.’
Penalties
Football is a common tool used by JVT to explain Britain’s progress through the coronavirus pandemic.
He once described the development of the Pfizer vaccine to reaching the penalties at the end of the play-off final.
‘So this is like… getting to the end of the play-off final, it’s gone to penalties, the first player goes up and scores a goal.
‘You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does is, it tells you that the goalkeeper can be beaten.’
Landing a plane
The progress of the vaccine rollout has been compared to different forms of transport, including a plane coming in to land.
JVT said: ‘Do I believe that we are now on the glide path to landing this plane? Yes I do.
‘Do I accept that sometimes when you are on the glide path, you can have a side wind and the landing is not totally straightforward, totally textbook? Of course.’
Crowded trains
JVT said the pandemic was like waiting on a platform for a train, with the lights ‘a long way off’.
He said: ‘This to me is like a train journey, it’s wet, it’s windy, it’s horrible.
‘Two miles down the tracks, two lights appear and it’s the train and it’s a long way off and we’re at that point at the moment. That’s the efficacy result.
‘Then we hope the train slows down safely to get into the station, that’s the safety data, and then the train stops.
‘And at that point, the doors don’t open, the guard has to make sure it’s safe to open the doors. That’s the MHRA, that’s the regulator.’
He said the train was the vaccine, and he hoped when it was ready there would not be ‘an unholy scramble for the seats’.
‘The JCVI has very clearly said which people need the seats most and they are the ones who should get on the train first.’
Red card
JVT said Britons needed to avoid getting a ‘red card’ from the Omicron coronavirus variant by getting a booster jab.
He said: ‘Omicron is like now picking up a couple of yellow cards to key players on top. We may be OK but we’re kind of starting to feel at risk that we might go down to 10 players and if that happens – or it’s a risk that’s going to happen – then we need everyone on the pitch to up their game in the meantime.
‘We’re not going to wait for the red card to happen, we are going to act decisively now and we’re asking everyone to up their game, we’re asking everyone to play their part in the urgency now of the booster programme, coming forward the moment you are called by the NHS.’
Yogurt
When explaining the extreme temperature the coronavirus vaccine must be stored at, JVT said it was not like a yogurt.
He added: ‘This is a complex product. It’s not a yoghurt that can be taken out of the fridge and put back in multiple times.’
And other famous moments…
When he ripped off his shirt
The professor proceeded to rip off his shirt and tie, disappearing into a cloud of smoke
Professor Van-Tam was hosting the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on BBC Four when he ripped off his shirt and tie, disappeared into a cloud of smoke – and reemerged in slightly less formal attire, wearing a more casual blue shirt underneath his jacket.
The stunt sparked a typical reaction on social media, with one account comparing JVT – as he’s widely become known – to Steve Coogan’s comedy cringe character, Alan Partridge.
When he dealt calmly with an anti-vaxxer
JVT stayed completely calm and responded politely to an anti-vaxxer who screamed abuse at him in Westminster last June.
Geza Tarjanyi, 60, of Leyland, Lancashire, targeted the Deputy Chief Medical Officer as he walked into the Ministry of Defence building.
He said: ‘Are you Van-Tam, aren’t ya? What was really in that needle that you put into Matt Hancock? Why are you continually lying to the British people? Why are you smiling? This country’s supposed to be in the worst pandemic of all time.’
Professor Van-Tam politely replied: ‘It is.’ And when, following another torrent of abuse, the anti-vaxxer asked JVT if he was listening, the expert said: ‘What? I’m finding it difficult.’
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