Kate Garraway shared her reaction to the news that ‘Britain is now out of the pandemic’ after her husband Derek Draper returned home following his Covid battle.
The presenter, 53, discussed Professor Sarah Walker’s comments on Friday’s Good Morning Britain after the chief investigator on survey said the coronavirus crisis has become an endemic due to the fall in infections rate since the vaccine rollout.
It comes after Kate’s husband Derek, 53, returned to their adapted family home earlier this month after spending a year in hospital battling Covid and the after-effects.
Reaction: Kate Garraway shared her reaction to the news that ‘Britain is now out of the pandemic’ after her husband Derek Draper returned home following his Covid battle
Talking to Dr Amir Khan, the presenter said: ‘Can we just talk about that seemingly extraordinary news that this morning Britain is now officially out of the pandemic.
‘So it was the 11 March, 2020, we officially went into the pandemic and now a leading Oxford scientist has said, having looked at the data, having gone through it all, because of the fall in infection rates… we are now out of the pandemic.
‘Dr Amir Khan, it sounds like… and it’s covered in several of the papers, the news we’ve been waiting for.’
She added: ‘They’re saying Britain has moved from a pandemic to an endemic, it’s going to make people think, “Oh thank God is this VE day, is it all over?”‘
Return: It comes after Kate’s husband Derek, 53, returned to their adapted family home earlier this month after spending a year in hospital battling Covid and the after-effects (pictured during documentary about his recovery, Finding Derek)
To which Dr Khan replied: ‘It’s a very bold statement for Professor Sarah Walker, who is the chief investigator of this study that has been in all the papers as you say.
‘What they have done, is take 1.6million swabs off people from across the UK over the last few months and compared those swabs from people who have been vaccinated, to people who haven’t been vaccinated or yet to be vaccinated.
‘What is shows is that even having one dose of vaccine reduces your risk of having the virus, getting symptoms, it can reduce your risk of symptomatic infection by 74 per cent.
‘But importantly, it can reduce your risk of having no symptoms and carrying the virus by over 50 per cent so these people would otherwise perhaps be wandering around, spreading it around, but the vaccine has reduced that risk.
News: The presenter, 53, discussed Professor Sarah Walker’s comments on Friday’s Good Morning Britain after the chief investigator on survey said the coronavirus crisis has become an endemic due to the fall in infections rate since the vaccine rollout
‘What is also showed, which is really interesting, is that the people who did test positive for the virus who had the vaccine had much lower viral low, so again, much less risk of transmission.’
Dr Khan added: ‘Hopefully we are turning the tide on this. We still need to take caution, we’ve seen in India what happens when you lift restrictions too quickly or you don’t have any restrictions at all.
‘The vaccine is really good in bringing down the virus, but I wouldn’t say we’re yet out yet.’
It comes after experts said that ‘Britain is no longer in a pandemic’ due to the vaccine rollout reducing symptomatic Covid infections by up to 90 per cent.
She said: Talking to Dr Amir Khan, the presenter said: ‘Can we just talk about that seemingly extraordinary news that this morning Britain is now officially out of the pandemic.’
Professor Walker, from the University of Oxford and chief investigator with the national Covid infection survey, said that Britain had ‘moved from a pandemic to an endemic situation’.
She said that she was ‘cautiously optimistic’ that the vaccine rollout could help keep coronavirus under control.
Professor Walker continued: ‘Without vaccines, I don’t think getting close to zero is really feasible in the situation now in the UK where we’re effectively endemic, we’ve moved from a pandemic to an endemic situation.
‘Long-term lockdown isn’t a viable solution so vaccines are clearly going to be the only way that we are going to have a chance to control this.’