Matt Hancock has admitted he was inspired by the Hollywood movie Contagion in planning the UK’s vaccine roll-out.
The Health Secretary was asked about rumours that the virus themed movie starring Matt Damon and Kate Winslett had inspired his plans for the country’s coronavirus vaccine roll-out.
Appearing for an interview on Good Morning Britain, Mr Hancock laughed at the question. He said: “I think the safest thing to say Piers is it wasn’t my only source of advice on this issue, but I did want to...”
Piers jokingly interjected. He said: “That would be a worry if you were turning to Hollywood."
Referring back to the movie and ideas used in the narrative, Mr Hancock added: “I did watch the film and the film is actually based on the advice of very serious epidemiologists.
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“The insight that was so necessary at the start was that the big moment of pressure on vaccines internationally would not be before they were approved, of course there was a huge amount of work then but it’s after they’re approved.
“One of the things that I did early was insist that when we had the Oxford vaccine and we backed it right from the start and that was great, I insisted that the UK production protects people in the UK in the first instance.
“As UK Health Secretary that is my duty and also at the same time we are making it available at cost to the rest of the world and not enough people give AstraZeneca the credit for that.
“Other vaccine companies are making tens of billions of pounds from their vaccine.”
Contagion is a 2011 Hollywood thriller and Drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The premise of the movie reads: “The death of Beth Emhoff and her son leads to the discovery of a deadly virus. While the US Centers for Disease Control struggles to curb its spread, a worldwide panic ensues."
In a separate interview with LBC host Nick Ferrari, Mr Hancock said: "In the film it shows that the moment of highest stress around the vaccination programme is not in fact before it's rolled out – when actually it’s the scientists and manufacturers working at pace – it's afterwards, when there is a huge row about the order of priority.
“So not only in this country did I insist that we ordered enough for every adult to have their two but also we asked for that clinical advice on that prioritisation very early and set it out in public…so that there was no big row about the order of priority.”
