Professor Peter Collignon

And at the end of the day, the COVID vaccines have probably got similar efficacy now that most people are immune and have had two or three infections than the influenza vaccine, which is okay, but it's not like our really great vaccines like measles, tetanus, et cetera.

The problem with that is we need to be careful and honest about how good the vaccines are because we're already seeing childhood vaccination dropping off a bit.

I mean, for five-year-olds, we used to have about 93 or 94% uptake by the age of five.

Now it's down to, I think, 91 and 92.

Now, not a huge drop,

But that is a concern if the vaccines that nobody can actually argue are very effective and give you usually lifelong immunity, we're seeing that drop.

Because if one in 10 children aren't vaccinated properly, that's a problem.

And it's even more in adults.

So for these things like measles, where you've got a very high chance of dying,

You know, well, relatively, a one in 10,000 chance of dying if you're a child, for instance, much higher than influenza or anything else.

So I think, you know, the advantage of programs like this is there's no absolute truth in this.

It's all shades of grey.

And people need to actually hear different viewpoints.

make up their own mind what they're going to do as an individual.

I'd still promote if you've got underlying heart disease or lung disease, get vaccinated, even though it's not one of our best vaccines.

But that's different for people who are otherwise well, and particularly something you have to take every year.

So I think we need to be more honest about it because if we oversell these vaccines and how much they'll protect you, we run the risk that people won't get the vaccines that we absolutely should be promoting for 100% of people.

Well, basically, at the moment, if you think you've got flu, this is, you know, currently, there's a 95% chance you don't.

You've got something else like the common cold virus.

So don't think it's the end of the world psychologically.