1
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So could you start by saying your name and what your current position is?

2
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Sure. I'm Dr. Leonard Lee. I'm a medical oncologist.

3
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I'm on I'm. I'm on independent sage. Um, I practice as a lecturer at the University of Oxford.

4
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Um, and I also work at NHS England within the cancer programme.

5
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So you've got clinical teaching and administrative responsibilities and even policy and policy and academic journals at the moment.

6
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So it's not where I expected to be in any way, shape or form.

7
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There you go. Let's find out about that.

8
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So take me back to when you first thought of becoming a doctor and and what your main kind of staging points have been between then and now.

9
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And so I guess I always might be a doctor because you generally have the connection with someone.

10
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And not only do you have the connection, but you have the ability to change their life, make it a lot better.

11
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Um, I really my parents steer me very clearly away from medicine, saying that it's a very difficult career, it's very hard.

12
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And I think and my dad was one particularly who tried to push me away from it.

13
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But actually, it's like a moth to the flame. Really. I wanted to help.

14
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This is what I was good at. This is how my mind works. And and I found a necessity.

15
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And I found and I'm so lucky. I landed up in a career where I can gently make people feel happy and they want to see me.

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And I can support them in the hardest times in life because they've got cancer.

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And it's perfect for me and the ability to help at many levels.

18
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Academic teaching clinical policy has has made it a wonderful career today.

19
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So where did you study medicine initially? And so I was an undergraduate Cambridge,

20
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and I transferred across Oxford and much of my career has been Oxford with the Harvard Skin Sound in London, too.

21
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And you you've done both your full clinical training, but you also did Dphil, is that correct?

22
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Yes. I'm one of these hybrid doctors where not only do you practice medicine,

23
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but you also have the really just a fantastic opportunity to do research at the same time.

24
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There's not many of us,

25
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but I've also been running down the academic pathway to doing my Ph.D. at the Wellcome Trust in Oxford and continue my research as a lecturer.

26
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Mm hmm. And what was the subject of your Ph.D.?

27
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Oh, completely. Nothing related. The way I find it. That path, actually.

28
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And it was. It was mouse. It was looking at what caused metastasis in mouse models of cancer.

29
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So I was dissecting out the genes which are causing the cancer to spread in mouse mice and trying

30
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to target them to stop it happening and to really molecular really mouse related and completely.

31
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Yeah, I mean that was where I was going to be dissecting out the genetics of bowel cancer.

32
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So yes, so the but that's, you know,

33
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that's to do with the fundamental understanding of cancer so that that would have had translational opportunities further down the line.

34
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So so how did your your focus change after that?

35
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So, I mean, I think the pandemic has been terrible.

36
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But before we get to the pandemic, so that actually we should be.

37
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So which year? What year did you finish your your dphil?

38
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2017. Okay. Yes. Yes. So between then and 2020, what were you doing?

39
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So I got headhunted. And so after my PhD, I got headhunted to go up to be a junior group leader in Birmingham.

40
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And I started my and I switched at that time point because before that I was more of a generalist, but then I switched into medical oncology.

41
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And Birmingham's a fantastic place because it's it's very diverse.

42
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You've got a very busy healthcare system on the edge of delivering what's possible.

43
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And I thrived on this actually a high throughput service, seeing so many people across the region as far as Wales.

44
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And that's why I started my training as a cancer doctor. And so that was mostly clinical, what you were doing.

45
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It was a mixture actually, and it was a split 5050.

46
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So half the time you were going onto the wards,

47
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seeing people with cancer treating their complications and and helping them if they got side effects from their drugs.

48
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And the other half you go across the lab pipetting. Um, teaching PhD students, teaching students, um,

49
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doing all the genetic sequencing and processing samples so for a week and they've

50
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got fantastic says to me Birmingham the hospital is like a multi over ten floors

51
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gleaming glass building and next door you've got all the universe and you then

52
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cross across the green with a winding path and it's only like a five minute walk.

53
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And you've got all the labs which are shiny glass fronted and completely different atmosphere.

54
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Um, the hospital, which is all fast delivery folks get people through and the labs where everything's clean,

55
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perfect, you're doing all perfectly high standards.

56
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And that was. And. The focus up over there in terms of be able to cross a road and then crossing,

57
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putting on different hats, but both of them making their differences in different ways.

58
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Mm hmm. And how did you when did you come back to Oxford?

59
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And so I came back to Oxford at the end of 2020.

60
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Oh, right. So. Okay, so we've got to go. Goodbye, then. So. Okay, we'll take a step back and I'll ask the question I ask everybody.

61
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Which is it? When did you first hear that there was something going on in Lucan and come to realise that it might be a global pandemic?

62
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Um, it was the news and I think and I picked this up and I shared it to my family, my friends, and I said, I have a bad feeling about this.

63
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And many of us in the scientific community did. We knew in January that this was bad.

64
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You look at the spreading, you look at what's happening there.

65
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And we knew, but there were attempts at that. Many people just said, no, this has happened many times before.

66
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There's never been a pandemic. How can this possibly the case?

67
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But I knew it was coming and do that.

68
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Excuse me. I mean, I hope this isn't a bad question to ask, but you obviously have Chinese heritage.

69
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Yes. Did that mean you still you do have relatives in China?

70
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So my my heritage is interesting because my grandparents from China,

71
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they moved across to Malaysia and I was born here and because my parents came across there to study.

72
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Um, so I didn't really have that link to China, but I did know that actually this is where this is happening.

73
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Things can happen, it can cross from species. And when it does, if it is as infectious as it was, it could be quite bad.

74
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I remember meeting with some friends with children and I was saying, Look,

75
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I think you guys should prepare because this is going to change things and you're going to be affected.

76
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And they were like, What? It's just a cold. And it turned out not to be.

77
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And I think, yeah, I think many of us in the science community knew and that was a bit worrying.

78
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But it was a very scary time to see that emerge over 20, 20, January, February, March.

79
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And then when it first landed. Yes. Yes. And once we got to March, obviously, when the government finally decided that lockdown might be a good idea,

80
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how did that affect what you were doing with your with your patients in Birmingham?

81
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Terrifying. Georgina It was terrifying, Um,

82
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because the messaging that came out was that the only way to stop the pandemic was to get out of hospitals and stay at home.

83
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And we all accepted that this was so infectious.

84
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So you had to get people home.

85
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But the caveat of that, the unknown repercussions of protect the NHS were shocking and my cancer patients weren't coming forward.

86
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They they said they didn't need treatment anymore and they, they said the only way they can keep themselves safe is to stop cancer treatment, go home.

87
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And likewise, people who had had lumps and bumps weren't coming forward.

88
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We were seeing drop offs in terms of people coming through the system. And I think that was a patient.

89
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I hope I don't forget the doctor level too. We were torn.

90
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Our doctors were debating across the NHS whether we should believe China and what they said.

91
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The message that came out of China was that you should shut every cancer centre because

92
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in Wuhan the hospitals were where the cancer patients got COVID and they all died.

93
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And these were really terrible messages coming out of China.

94
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Small studies, 20 cancer patients, all of them died because they got COVID and their own treatment.

95
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Clear messages coming out of China shut down cancer centres across the West and I think that was being heeded by Italy.

96
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He was hit the furthest, fastest.

97
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And actually our doctors didn't know if what we were doing was safe because what we were trying to do is deliver cancer care.

98
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Chemotherapy in the midst of a major global pandemic.

99
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Sounds we know the right answer and how do it.

100
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But at the time point it was obvious you save the population.

101
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I mean, it wasn't obvious. People said you save the population by stopping all cancer care.

102
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This was a few points. Get the hospitals only treat COVID and the cancer patients will pick it up in three months time when the pandemic is over.

103
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And I, I guess the pivotal moment in my career came was when we had all the doctors in the room, doctors torn,

104
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broken people trying to work out how would you protect the population versus how would you protect your cancer patients.

105
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The arguments were heated. On one hand, we take we have a vow to look after our patients.

106
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We have to keep our cancer patients life giving the quality of life.

107
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But the other argument was you need to go down to any and mandate service now, drop everything you do, get to A&E, forget your patients.

108
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And and so the split the straw poll in that room really heated debates saying what we should do what.

109
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The right thing is, no one knew. Half said that will close down our clinics.

110
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That's it for cancer care. We don't need to do this anymore.

111
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Let's go keep our cancer patient safe at home. Let's go to any.

112
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And the other half saying, No, I can't let my patients go. We're going to fight for them.

113
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We're going to give them that time. We need to keep their cancer at bay because this may last much longer than three months.

114
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And you were in that group. I see. So actually, this is my position earlier.

115
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I said we need the data. I said we needed evidence.

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I said, we need to know. And I said, I honestly don't know.

117
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But we need to find out either way and find out what. Right. And this was the time.

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These these debates went up and down and it just boards and corridors and clinics and among secretaries and offices attitude.

119
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And no one genuine knew apart from the Chinese saying, Please shut everything down.

120
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This is the only way forward. I say, we need the data and the only way we knew whether WhatsApp messages is crazy.

121
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But this is how we communicate. In 2020, a London doctor pinged a doctor in Oxford who ping.

122
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The doctor in Birmingham said, Actually my patients have survived COVID.

123
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And that was shocking for us because we thought we if I mean the repercussions, I gave someone chemo, they got COVID, they died.

124
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There's a clear chain there that you do not want to be part of what you want to be,

125
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that you want to be a person who said, I told the patient to stay home. They avoided COVID.

126
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They survived. But equally, it could be the other one, which is I sent a patient home.

127
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They didn't get COVID, but they died for cancer. I mean, these are horrible, terrible dilemma.

128
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Yeah, Well done. Yes. Yes. And and I think everyone was so afraid.

129
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And every clinic we saw with people coming in, the ones who dared to come to hospital was so afraid.

130
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And actually you just wanted to hug them. Even though we couldn't hug them, we couldn't even touch them at this stage.

131
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We couldn't even shake their hands. We still can't in many places.

132
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But patients with cancer was so afraid because they knew they were the higher risk group, especially the ones of chemo.

133
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And there was no data apart from WhatsApp messages. Mm hmm. And that was that.

134
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And the remembering is very clearly.

135
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But did you get involved in some kind of national cancer initiative at that stage of the COVID cancer programme, which was deemed the world's first?

136
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And so I said, we don't know. So why we take all these WhatsApp messages our face?

137
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Why? Why we judging everything? We just WhatsApp messages.

138
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Let's put data programming here, the assessment data programme for the whole of the country.

139
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And let's ask the question, can we deliver cancer care safely in the pandemic?

140
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I mean, I think am I the naivete of inexperience that states setting up massive data programs for the whole country?

141
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But in its essence, it was really simple.

142
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Everyone starting in London where the pandemic happened, would pull the data and they'll collect a few bits of key information.

143
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Did the person did the did a cancer patient die or not? That was the key outcome.

144
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Um, but the other things too were also important is what treatment did they get, What cancer type did they have?

145
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Um, and obviously and we collect all this ethnicity and age, everything that was important.

146
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And then we, we kicked off in March 2020, so really quick actually, and I basically had to shout as long as I can,

147
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the UK will collect this data and we try to use the platforms that we had at that time.

148
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But because we couldn't, the press would not cover anything. They just said, Stay at home, save the NHS, protect lives.

149
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Everyone took that to mean stop cancer care. And that's that's the only message that came out from the mainstream press and radio.

150
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They were just blanket these messages. So we use other channels to communicate amongst ourselves.

151
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And surprisingly,

152
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Twitter was a great way of galvanising support to our community because there were enough people who were saying who would be honest, we don't know.

153
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But we took the next step. Let's go find out and put the data programme.

154
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The data programme was amazing. And you knew were heading it.

155
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Yeah. So I think we found that it with a professor called Gary Middleton and we asked this the idea and actually started from volume actually,

156
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but we put Oxford, and Oxford played a key part in all parts of the planning of this and we basically said can we repurpose

157
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the digital programmes of universities into the COVID response and how quickly can we turn them on,

158
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turn on all the high throughput, high performance machines and pull data from every hospital?

159
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So even if you are a little hospital and how your data would count and contributes

160
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and the data programme pull docs and nurses contribute in data day and night.

161
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We were watching data come in on Sunday night at 2 a.m. when the doctors are being

162
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night shift because they found a COVID patient who have cancer and they contributed.

163
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I was so proud actually in total 86 cancer centres to and we led the world for this.

164
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And it was amazing because we were reports and they were all were they all treating patients or.

165
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Some of them had some of them in a patient's home. So that's the thing.

166
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We were we were tracking the spread of the virus as it came out of London.

167
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So London centres were pinging the most cases. Then it hit the Midlands and they were started in pink cases in North.

168
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In the first wave wasn't badly affected, but we could track the cases found out from the UK outwards amongst our cancer

169
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communities and we were also knowing if they survived or not for the first time.

170
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And what was unique about our programme was every week we sent the data straight back out to people.

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So we told them this is a survival rate and actually we have really early signs that it wasn't true,

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that if you had chemo and you got COVID, you automatically die. And this is actually why we were doing this.

173
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My patient comes to me petrified in tears.

174
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I'm taking a risk, Doctor. I'm coming to you for cancer care.

175
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What if I got code from the hospital automatically or all around the UK or 86 continents as the doctors and nurses could go back and say,

176
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Look, this is not a death sentence. If you avoid COVID, you'll be okay.

177
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And many people are.

178
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But the vulnerability we should just make clear that the reason they're vulnerable is that the chemotherapy knocks out their immune.

179
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Exactly. And completely knocks out immune system. So they may not want to fight it.

180
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And what we were seeing people surviving who got COVID when they have cancer, and that was really shown massively early.

181
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That's yeah that's fantastic. And did, did that feed through into policy at all.

182
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I did. I just can't believe what they'd the power of data because.

183
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We knew very early on.

184
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We knew by March when we got our paper out that we we put a big paper in The Lancet saying you can deliver cancer care safely during the pandemic.

185
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So you said you started in March. Oh, that's that.

186
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We we knew by May, late May that cancer care could be delivered during the pandemic and that chemotherapy was not driving deaths.

187
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It was age and other things like ethnicity and deprivation and sex and chemotherapy wasn't that high up there, actually.

188
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And so we could send that message out. And it was we only knew about a year later.

189
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We look at the metrics. And from March, when we came before March, we kicked off the chemotherapy.

190
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Prescribing levels were plummeting, literally just dropping off a cliff of people stopped coming forward,

191
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people stopped being diagnosed and clinics that were shut down. As soon as we publish bounce straight back up again, back to 100%.

192
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And I think we publish head to head with the Americans.

193
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And I think you look at that data again, cancer care was interrupted for a short period of time,

194
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but it bounced back on the on the evidence of data and confidence in our systems

195
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and our ability to keep keep people away from curve and keep the safe in hospital.

196
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It was it changed policy, actually. And I'm glad our little country played a little part in this because we shouldn't.

197
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:13,300
We're a very small country. We don't normally lead in terms of cancer. We do in some areas.

198
00:18:13,660 --> 00:18:19,299
But this we definitely did. We told the world, keep your cancer centres going and nowadays where are we?

199
00:18:19,300 --> 00:18:24,040
2023? There is nowhere around the world where cancer care is deprived because of the pandemic.

200
00:18:24,050 --> 00:18:27,490
Everyone knows you've got to keep it going because cancer is a killer.

201
00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:32,680
Mm hmm. So and then towards the end of 2020, you came back to Oxford.

202
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:39,339
How did that come about? So then the Oxford were really interested in terms of what I'd done,

203
00:18:39,340 --> 00:18:46,329
because how do you create a system which collects all the data from the whole country and run the whole data program from scratch?

204
00:18:46,330 --> 00:18:52,450
And I think I was our team were lucky because the pandemic helped us and gave us the momentum to all work together.

205
00:18:52,860 --> 00:18:57,520
And I think research is always about building bridges and I try to do that all the time.

206
00:18:57,550 --> 00:19:03,730
Points say, Look, we all work together on this. We need to answer the big questions that are facing us at the moment.

207
00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:08,030
And my big question was, should we look, should we keep treating cancer patients?

208
00:19:08,030 --> 00:19:14,510
The pandemic and we did that in the UK COVID cancer programme. And then I came to Oxford and it was really interesting.

209
00:19:14,530 --> 00:19:18,700
For a year nothing was happening because all the labs were shut down.

210
00:19:18,700 --> 00:19:22,719
I said, okay, I've done this, I've done my team, and now we've done in the UK.

211
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:27,430
We answer the question, Cancer care should continue. I came here, want to go pick up my mouse research again?

212
00:19:28,290 --> 00:19:31,840
And there was nothing. All the types of shots at the university sent everyone home.

213
00:19:32,590 --> 00:19:36,670
It was. I got sent into limbo initially in 2020 at the end of 2020.

214
00:19:37,900 --> 00:19:43,870
But what I think I'm just asking, how did you come to apply for the job when things were going well at Birmingham?

215
00:19:43,870 --> 00:19:48,400
You had lots of interesting things to do there. What what appealed to you about coming back to Oxford?

216
00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,810
And Oxford was always I always see Oxford as my home.

217
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:53,830
I was a student.

218
00:19:53,830 --> 00:20:03,280
Here is it's a wonderful place to live and it's got this wonderful reputation in terms of getting things going very fast and delivering it.

219
00:20:03,730 --> 00:20:11,240
And I mean, I think that Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was getting done here and we were leading many efforts in terms of out who

220
00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:17,080
was at risk and other big data programs and therefore was really attractive ecosystem to to contribute a bit more.

221
00:20:17,410 --> 00:20:21,910
I'm not saying that Birmingham wasn't good. I love Birmingham and they gave me so many opportunities,

222
00:20:22,750 --> 00:20:31,299
but it was just much closer to home for me and it worked for me personally and it was nice to see a bit more come back a bit more than I did.

223
00:20:31,300 --> 00:20:39,340
My peers divided among the graduates and you came into the role that you still currently hold this joint academic, clinical, 5050 role, right?

224
00:20:39,340 --> 00:20:44,559
Yeah. And so, yes. So you found that no research was going on.

225
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:49,500
So what we owe you, what you find your time. And so I think am.

226
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:56,890
Forever. For those of us which were involved in pandemic, we knew that in 2020 something bad could happen in winter.

227
00:20:56,890 --> 00:21:02,110
But remember, we had that pier, pier of ignorance where we believe that we've done it over summer.

228
00:21:02,170 --> 00:21:05,440
Yes. That's why I don't believe we've done it is gone.

229
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,530
And we have we could we could do PCR.

230
00:21:09,290 --> 00:21:13,320
We could find people. We had a bit of. We could. We could.

231
00:21:13,330 --> 00:21:17,380
It was the thing where they, they called it contact tracing. That was enough, wasn't it.

232
00:21:17,410 --> 00:21:19,770
Contact tracing and PCR testing. We solved it.

233
00:21:20,770 --> 00:21:24,790
But in my heart of hearts, again, I had that feeling again, which is, I don't know how I'm getting the feelings,

234
00:21:24,790 --> 00:21:27,910
but I think there were others saying this, that there could be a surge in the winter.

235
00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:32,010
And I asked around and said, Well, actually, if I can't do my go back to mask,

236
00:21:32,020 --> 00:21:37,780
as you said, can I lead over to the COVID teams and helped them and just in case.

237
00:21:38,890 --> 00:21:41,770
And that launched a second phase of when I got to now,

238
00:21:41,770 --> 00:21:48,940
which was something that completely took me by surprise because it was a risk for me, both in my career and clinically too.

239
00:21:50,770 --> 00:21:51,210
What was that?

240
00:21:52,230 --> 00:22:03,130
That the lateral flow moonshots and the crazy, crazy idea and that you could remember at this time point, the PCR testing programme getting swamped,

241
00:22:03,340 --> 00:22:10,209
people being sent to Wales, they got told you want to test, you got to drive for 4 hours and it was just terrible.

242
00:22:10,210 --> 00:22:11,200
It's all across the press.

243
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:20,080
And there was this moonshot programme initiative which was a UK unique thing where we said we would try and work out a new diagnostic test for COVID,

244
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:27,129
which wasn't PCR based. And the programme that I got was one that Oxford agreed to lead and there were many programmes.

245
00:22:27,130 --> 00:22:32,350
Every institution had one pushing one technology to try and advance as quickly as possible.

246
00:22:32,950 --> 00:22:36,790
Oxford's one was called the Lateral Flow Moonshot.

247
00:22:38,860 --> 00:22:42,460
We all know a lateral flow is now about that time point. I had no idea.

248
00:22:42,730 --> 00:22:47,440
I got told when I first came here. Also has got a program where we believe a £1 test.

249
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,830
Can you give to someone? They can diagnose COVID themselves.

250
00:22:51,670 --> 00:22:56,230
This will save us lots of money. This could really take the heat out of the pandemic.

251
00:22:57,220 --> 00:23:01,480
And I looked into it and I thought, wow, I mean, the proposal sounds crazy,

252
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:05,500
but when I read into science, I was like, Well, there's actually something here.

253
00:23:05,890 --> 00:23:11,050
And if you give something cheap to someone that they can find out themselves and you empower someone to do it.

254
00:23:11,550 --> 00:23:15,640
And so I joined the lateral flow programme led by Prof.

255
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:18,820
Derek Rock, Prophet and Peter and Sir John Bell.

256
00:23:19,990 --> 00:23:26,260
And it was it felt important it wasn't cancer, but I thought that it would help cancer patients eventually.

257
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:32,200
And I joined the programme and it was the most crazy rollercoaster I have ever been on because it worked.

258
00:23:34,650 --> 00:23:44,010
And when I tell you a bit more about it, what are the steps required to get this into everyone's houses, which you all had in those boxes?

259
00:23:44,850 --> 00:23:51,330
Well, the first step was research, and the department have needed research capable institutions.

260
00:23:51,750 --> 00:23:55,200
And Oxford said, We will help you with the lateral flow programme.

261
00:23:55,590 --> 00:24:00,570
And by the university, they're the ones. So Southampton, the lab and Manchester did one, too.

262
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,750
But we said we would do that at all flows. Why?

263
00:24:04,950 --> 00:24:12,880
Because I've spoken to Derek Crook. I thought what they were doing was evaluating lateral flow tests that had been developed by private companies.

264
00:24:12,900 --> 00:24:16,020
Is that. That's what it was? Yeah. They weren't trying to develop their own.

265
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:22,020
So. So this is technology? Yes. This was interesting. You know, the lateral flow.

266
00:24:22,270 --> 00:24:26,370
Lots of small manufacturers all saying that their product is the best in the world.

267
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:34,980
And there were must have been 50 to 100 manufacturers all from every part of the world.

268
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:41,670
And they were all saying that a mine is the best product. And Derek was like, well, how do you know you're the best product?

269
00:24:42,090 --> 00:24:46,090
And how does the government know what the best invested? Because we only want the best.

270
00:24:46,090 --> 00:24:50,190
Like we want the boat. The high court says easy to use. So how do they find it?

271
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:54,570
So I got to a stage where Derek already said the system I will test in the labs initially.

272
00:24:55,320 --> 00:25:00,900
And Porton Down did a fantastic job. They tested all them head to head in the most complete, fair way possible.

273
00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:04,370
But then the next step becomes a big, big question is over.

274
00:25:04,380 --> 00:25:11,730
A lot of testing on fake virus, which is done the test tube in perfect conditions in my shiny lab where everything is done perfectly.

275
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:19,200
But what happens when you give it to people? How does the performing stick stick in the sort that someone knows them worry about?

276
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,230
How does it work then? And that's why I got told to answer the question.

277
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:23,879
And that is a technology thing.

278
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:31,920
So you force it out from being in, then a microsoft in a hood, in a small number of people, a test 20 to 30 times put it in a community.

279
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,740
And that is the challenge is how do you do clinical trials at pace in the pandemic?

280
00:25:36,090 --> 00:25:39,930
And that was a problem I had to solve initially. So what were you?

281
00:25:40,110 --> 00:25:47,160
Were you actually recruiting patients and then testing them yourself? So we need to set up the fastest diagnostic study in COVID possible.

282
00:25:47,490 --> 00:25:55,470
And they told us we had to do this within a month and test the technology in just one month because we saw the uptake of cases.

283
00:25:55,680 --> 00:26:02,070
It was only subtle, but you could see that curve just upping up with in 2020, that was about 3000.

284
00:26:02,100 --> 00:26:06,870
So in about September, October now, yes, yes. We needed to get the studies up and running.

285
00:26:07,350 --> 00:26:15,060
And so it was really funny because the piece of paper, the protocol had to be had to be someone had to pull it together.

286
00:26:15,540 --> 00:26:21,899
And so we reached out to a professor at Manchester Potteries Body who just happened to have a paper which says Richard Body Richard,

287
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:25,840
Richard Body and professor by the A&E consultant. He happened to have a piece of paper.

288
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:34,260
It said I would test coronavirus diagnostics. He didn't say lateral flow, but we had to amend his entire paper from scratch within a week to get that,

289
00:26:34,260 --> 00:26:40,530
to keep two timescales and then get it approved. And this is where our research bodies came into the fore here,

290
00:26:40,530 --> 00:26:46,350
because you have to get the paper signed off by research body, say it ethical to get a new test.

291
00:26:46,810 --> 00:26:51,420
And actually part of my job was to link in with the research bodies and say,

292
00:26:51,420 --> 00:26:54,660
well, would you would I know your committee is not sitting for another month.

293
00:26:55,080 --> 00:27:00,330
Would you mind helping us here because we think we're on to something here.

294
00:27:00,330 --> 00:27:05,580
We need to test it. And they did. I mean, I remember recording someone out of surgery and saying, look,

295
00:27:05,580 --> 00:27:09,090
I know you're the chair, but please, please, please, would you mind helping here?

296
00:27:09,090 --> 00:27:12,600
Because we cannot test the country at the moment.

297
00:27:12,990 --> 00:27:16,920
We do not have the PCR capability, and even if we did, it will bankrupt the entire country.

298
00:27:17,100 --> 00:27:22,620
With PCR, we need to have something cheaper to help people find out for themselves if it was a cold or COVID.

299
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:27,060
And to be honest, they let us go. They turned the programme on very, very quickly.

300
00:27:27,300 --> 00:27:33,940
It was funded. The protocol was going. I think we were setting up the sites and the sites were interesting and charging

301
00:27:33,940 --> 00:27:39,179
and because and what we needed to do was every time an outbreak happened,

302
00:27:39,180 --> 00:27:44,220
they needed someone to go in there and under the guise of all of our leaderships,

303
00:27:44,580 --> 00:27:50,220
take over a portacabin if you remember in 2020 there just portacabin there were literally just metal,

304
00:27:50,550 --> 00:27:54,150
metal, metal crates like the shipping containers with chairs in.

305
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:59,759
And we need to put on nurses from the night shore that trained them up how to use it as a lateral flow.

306
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,750
And again, no one had even seen this before.

307
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:09,000
It's it's a bit like a pregnancy test, isn't it, where you've got the strip and the two lines, but the men had no idea how to use it.

308
00:28:09,870 --> 00:28:15,120
The women did, but you had to also swap the people to and test them.

309
00:28:15,540 --> 00:28:22,560
And so I was involved in terms of going to every outbreak region and setting up these testing centres, get them going.

310
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,040
That would be 24 hours then the next day.

311
00:28:26,220 --> 00:28:33,750
So I had to say, do I think you're trained now, Keith, Keep an eye on these protocols and they'll ship me to next outbreak region.

312
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,230
We went across. We call it the moon, we call them moonshot sites.

313
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:43,629
And those sites around the country, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester,

314
00:28:43,630 --> 00:28:49,870
the first ones in that area had actually, crazily enough, people probably forget that the Manchester Etihad,

315
00:28:49,870 --> 00:28:56,979
because I know football games that that is do research there and that was the first site But then you went to every

316
00:28:56,980 --> 00:29:07,810
outbreak region and we we set the study up 34 days to get the results of 34 days of tests over a thousand people.

317
00:29:09,220 --> 00:29:16,600
And we worked out that that lateral folks were pretty good, actually surprisingly good for a test which costs a couple of pounds.

318
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,650
And these people who you were testing, were you doing PCR on them as well?

319
00:29:20,870 --> 00:29:24,909
You're not exactly a head to head comparison as far as you can possibly do.

320
00:29:24,910 --> 00:29:29,770
Yeah. And these people were people who had COVID and were.

321
00:29:30,310 --> 00:29:35,530
So we called back the positives initially to work out how good it was at picking up the positive people.

322
00:29:35,530 --> 00:29:42,370
So people had COVID. And I think the nurses, I think the nurses, the research nurses are amazing.

323
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:47,680
They had to call people and remember, 2020, there were very little there were no treatments, were there.

324
00:29:48,070 --> 00:29:52,750
And these people really scared that home. And we were asking them to do something that was quite unheard of here.

325
00:29:53,410 --> 00:30:00,610
Would you partake in research? Could we swab you again when, despite being positive, and would you contribute to the effort to get a new test?

326
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,659
And they did. I can't. But if they did, some people said no, I just feel too sick.

327
00:30:04,660 --> 00:30:11,920
I don't leave home. I don't want to take the risk. But people gave their time and they gave their effort and came to the Etihad.

328
00:30:12,310 --> 00:30:17,500
They came for that repeated test and they benefited millions of people across the world.

329
00:30:17,740 --> 00:30:21,820
We got tens of million because this is how you test coronavirus lateral flow.

330
00:30:22,150 --> 00:30:27,580
But they came from Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London.

331
00:30:27,580 --> 00:30:29,559
They would they made the sacrifice.

332
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:37,120
They came out, they, they, they gave the samples and we knew very quickly 34 days we knew in the UK, we knew before the rest of the world.

333
00:30:38,140 --> 00:30:44,620
It was amazing. And on the strength of that, a certain number of manufacturers were chosen to supply the NHS,

334
00:30:44,620 --> 00:30:47,890
the free kits that were sent out to people that you could just get on the phone.

335
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,370
Well then, then the UK government was a really fantastic situation.

336
00:30:51,730 --> 00:30:55,600
We were the only government of which one had to had effective programmes and

337
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,260
we're the only UK government which knew which manufacturers were the good ones.

338
00:30:59,890 --> 00:31:06,400
And the converse is also true. We also knew which ones were selling dud products and ones which were not sensitive.

339
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:10,780
Not very good. And we'll just say you're positive when you don't have COVID and say Yo, you have got.

340
00:31:10,780 --> 00:31:14,260
Because when you did and there was a huge skew in performance,

341
00:31:14,590 --> 00:31:19,059
the very best were grades the middle were you probably won't want to use them at the very

342
00:31:19,060 --> 00:31:23,890
bottom right you just you may as well just toss the coin whether you're cold or not.

343
00:31:24,340 --> 00:31:28,360
But the UK government knew and so we had this rigorous programme to test in the lab

344
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:33,370
first and tested humans second and tested we were next and we had the perfect mechanism.

345
00:31:33,610 --> 00:31:37,569
This is how science should work. Only the best ideas and the best products go through.

346
00:31:37,570 --> 00:31:40,700
And we did that in the UK. It's very, very satisfying actually.

347
00:31:40,750 --> 00:31:46,330
That happened in many ways and only the best got through and absolutely nothing to do with cancer care.

348
00:31:46,390 --> 00:31:49,390
And so once that was all done, what did you go back to doing?

349
00:31:49,810 --> 00:31:58,240
And so then then I went across to the public health actually because the labs one opening up in in 2021.

350
00:31:58,570 --> 00:32:00,910
So I went across the pond to help and help the scale up.

351
00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:08,450
So I became a civil servant, one of the deputy leaders in the civil service in Department of Health, um,

352
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:16,240
to scale it up because at that time point they needed doctors who knew what the lateral flow was to start training the whole of the programme.

353
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:24,670
And then they might have had a crazy effort where you had to get it, turn it on an NHS, turn it on in schools and turn it on in the community.

354
00:32:25,470 --> 00:32:28,630
And I was the face of the the NHS with you.

355
00:32:29,710 --> 00:32:33,730
So because no one knew how to do it, they said, well we need someone who can, can you do it well?

356
00:32:33,730 --> 00:32:42,340
And so they filmed me doing it as part of NHS rollout and, and I think department have again showed themselves to be a very capable organisation.

357
00:32:42,970 --> 00:32:46,000
I natural flows went out very, very quickly across programme.

358
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,860
They made the switch from PCR to natural for very, very quickly and they did it in a safe fashion,

359
00:32:50,860 --> 00:32:53,860
which was thorough and people felt comfortable with.

360
00:32:54,430 --> 00:32:59,649
And I and I was really, I mean the record is like this report, we had to take people with you.

361
00:32:59,650 --> 00:33:02,410
You need to tell them why you were doing this and be honest.

362
00:33:02,410 --> 00:33:08,170
And we, we, we told people why they might want to do this because it was not obvious that people wanted a test.

363
00:33:08,540 --> 00:33:12,970
We made it something that they wanted to do. And we talked about it being the most infectious.

364
00:33:13,270 --> 00:33:17,110
We talked about the one in three people. We didn't have symptoms.

365
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:21,430
These are the truth, but it wasn't communicated. You had to find that one in three.

366
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:25,900
You had to stop the most infectious and you were protecting your family by testing.

367
00:33:26,230 --> 00:33:31,630
And the public did it. It came with us and it was just a really successful government programme.

368
00:33:31,780 --> 00:33:35,010
And the fact that it was free, it was just. Was astonishing, really.

369
00:33:35,020 --> 00:33:39,670
And the number that you were allowed to apply for just seemed amazing.

370
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:48,420
I mean, we never needed that many, but it seemed like it must have been an incredibly costly program, but it saved so many lives.

371
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,870
And I think the benefit went beyond the U.K., too, because the third world,

372
00:33:52,870 --> 00:33:57,819
that's what we are seeing as we pass data that we preprints in so early to third world could say,

373
00:33:57,820 --> 00:34:01,960
actually, I don't need to buy all of these PCR machines because I couldn't buy them anyway.

374
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:08,140
We have no labs anyway, so why don't we go buy some of these natural food products and we know the ones which work because the UK bought them too.

375
00:34:09,190 --> 00:34:16,420
And likewise any outbreak regions countries could just throw in lateral flow so they didn't need to set up labs.

376
00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:20,350
It was just decentralised, easy and owned by the community.

377
00:34:20,710 --> 00:34:25,270
And I remember there was a list of welfare things and I think it'll come back to you and your name, he said.

378
00:34:25,270 --> 00:34:28,750
Actually we're going to protect our village and stop the outbreak there.

379
00:34:28,990 --> 00:34:31,890
And they got the lateral flows out to everyone there and they tested very quickly.

380
00:34:31,900 --> 00:34:37,270
Liverpool did the same to decentralise approaches to research and the pandemic response

381
00:34:37,270 --> 00:34:42,559
worked really well and I think there was the reporting of the results into did you have any,

382
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:49,250
any involvement in in that side of it despite the fact that the results were reported centrally?

383
00:34:49,270 --> 00:34:56,590
I did, actually. And again, I used some of the things I learned in the initial COVID cancer programme about the importance of data,

384
00:34:57,070 --> 00:35:03,700
because we also, the UK, captured everyone's, whether you're positive or not and how many people are infected you test and trace.

385
00:35:04,090 --> 00:35:11,889
So we could automatically say, Well, what do you know if you got a lot of virus and you got really strong lines in your lateral flow positive,

386
00:35:11,890 --> 00:35:19,390
you're going on infecting ten people. And so that's where the most infectiousness thing came out of the UK that I mean,

387
00:35:19,450 --> 00:35:25,630
I did we Oxford put this the Oxford podcast, but actually the Oxford academics came in very strongly here to provide that.

388
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:30,070
This is the analysis we look at. These are data points you look at, these are the graphs, profit inputs.

389
00:35:30,070 --> 00:35:37,629
I draw the graph and told us where to look and we in the government programs and also when something amazing happened, the government data programme,

390
00:35:37,630 --> 00:35:45,520
which the government job is data also and it became research and also became findings, actionable findings about how you can stop the pandemic.

391
00:35:45,790 --> 00:35:51,490
And we had these wonderful models of like what it was doing and comparing that with data.

392
00:35:52,180 --> 00:35:57,100
And so the data automatically became a circle whereby we could take the heat of

393
00:35:57,100 --> 00:36:00,309
the fire by picking out the most infectious and we knew why we could do it,

394
00:36:00,310 --> 00:36:02,230
which groups to do it. It was it was incredible.

395
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:09,880
And again, I just felt the data scientists had an amazing job and it's great that we're not to that we have steer that a little bit.

396
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:10,800
Right.

397
00:36:11,110 --> 00:36:20,649
That's very good to hear because, I mean, the Department of Health has been knocked by the media quite a lot for various aspects of the response,

398
00:36:20,650 --> 00:36:23,650
but it's very good to hear from the insight that that was working.

399
00:36:24,130 --> 00:36:27,459
I think one of the things I would say reflects my time in in Department of

400
00:36:27,460 --> 00:36:31,840
Health is that civil servants are not allowed to tout their own achievements.

401
00:36:32,290 --> 00:36:36,730
You're not allowed to say what you've done. Well, it's only when the ministers say you are allowed to say can you say it,

402
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:43,870
and therefore that means there are so many pockets of amazing people and excellence that they then speak about what they've done.

403
00:36:43,870 --> 00:36:45,129
And you may will never know.

404
00:36:45,130 --> 00:36:52,180
The public will never know what a great civil service we've got and where their achievements are, because I may not hear about it, but I mean,

405
00:36:52,420 --> 00:36:58,510
these sort of recordings and podcasts will say that the civil service in 2020,

406
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:05,800
when it was all going to pot, stood up and did amazing things, the vaccine testing the drugs.

407
00:37:06,250 --> 00:37:09,520
And it all came. It came from the UK. It was amazing.

408
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:14,110
And we we punch above our weight. So how long did you stay in the Department of Health?

409
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,370
And so I stayed. That's about the summer. Summer of 21. Yeah, exactly.

410
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:28,719
And then the mission was done for me to show that that was the end of my, my second phase and the lateral flows had automatically stopped.

411
00:37:28,720 --> 00:37:32,950
All the outbreaks in the over most of them. Schools could happen.

412
00:37:33,810 --> 00:37:38,049
The children can come out, they could go back to normality.

413
00:37:38,050 --> 00:37:43,020
Now, the universities weren't capped were locking the students up in rooms anymore because the

414
00:37:43,030 --> 00:37:46,330
students could also have a test to say that was okay for me to go and play some sports.

415
00:37:47,220 --> 00:37:50,410
And it felt and it was testing was around the country. So that was my job.

416
00:37:50,410 --> 00:37:54,010
Then on phase two and I took a test. But that wasn't the end.

417
00:37:54,100 --> 00:38:01,389
No, no. So you you had a continuing interest or concern about how vulnerable patients,

418
00:38:01,390 --> 00:38:06,490
particularly those who were receiving cancer care, were treated during the pandemic?

419
00:38:07,330 --> 00:38:14,650
Yes, I did. And I and I had the feeling that actually with mass vaccination, there was a viewpoint that everyone was protected.

420
00:38:15,130 --> 00:38:20,110
Um, but there was stuff to be emerging data coming out showing that actually if you

421
00:38:20,110 --> 00:38:23,620
look at the immune response of people who are on chemo with blood cancers,

422
00:38:24,610 --> 00:38:29,410
some people there's no difference in their immune response. They just weren't, they weren't protected by vaccination.

423
00:38:29,890 --> 00:38:33,750
That was probably should have been surprise and rhetoric.

424
00:38:34,110 --> 00:38:37,130
But they were so strong. Vaccination will protect everyone.

425
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,090
This is the only way to protect yourself. But then we were seeing pockets of risk.

426
00:38:41,450 --> 00:38:44,450
And some people the protection there was much, much lower than anyone else.

427
00:38:44,870 --> 00:38:48,139
That really worried me. And that was coming out of data programs.

428
00:38:48,140 --> 00:38:52,520
And this word came about which came out of nowhere immunocompromised.

429
00:38:53,690 --> 00:38:59,480
I mean, I think we all know what it is in 2023, but no one really thought about this word apart from doctors,

430
00:38:59,810 --> 00:39:03,800
maybe a few scientists, that people were immunocompromised. What does it mean?

431
00:39:04,310 --> 00:39:08,209
It means your immune system is impaired. It's impaired because of the disease.

432
00:39:08,210 --> 00:39:15,170
You've got like a blood cancer or the treatment that you've got. Or maybe you are born with inherited condition so your immune system doesn't work.

433
00:39:16,220 --> 00:39:21,680
The hidden facts, which no one really got, was that vaccines only work because it stimulates your immune system.

434
00:39:22,820 --> 00:39:28,500
If you haven't got an immune system to stimulate or is not working very well, then vaccines may not be the best protection for you.

435
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,600
In fact, it probably gives you something, but it's not as good as everyone else.

436
00:39:31,610 --> 00:39:36,970
So there was big inequality there and that was something that people don't talk about.

437
00:39:37,550 --> 00:39:46,190
But I think it was shadowed by the fact that you must never you had vaccines were shown to be good for the population,

438
00:39:46,190 --> 00:39:49,099
therefore you couldn't let any anti-vax views happen there.

439
00:39:49,100 --> 00:39:57,350
So there was that odd juxtaposition between make believe that vaccines, the only thing you can do versus accepting that wasn't perfect for everyone.

440
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:04,350
That was a difficult position. And so what initiatives did you become involved with?

441
00:40:04,530 --> 00:40:09,630
Sure. So the initiative that I got involved with was I'm too tall.

442
00:40:10,350 --> 00:40:13,590
And I think it's about making bridges. Actually, we made bridges.

443
00:40:13,860 --> 00:40:18,720
And we formed this group of people who call themselves the forgotten 500 K.

444
00:40:19,260 --> 00:40:22,649
Um, people were shouting the kidney transplant.

445
00:40:22,650 --> 00:40:28,190
People were shouting, saying, Look, I'm at risk. Please help me. The cancer patients were saying, I think I'm at risk.

446
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,829
I have no response to vaccines. I at risk. Someone tell me about risk.

447
00:40:31,830 --> 00:40:36,410
Please tell me I think I am. Please help me. And it happened every single group.

448
00:40:36,420 --> 00:40:41,700
But what was tying them all together was they had all had immune impaired immune responses.

449
00:40:42,090 --> 00:40:45,569
They were immuno compromised. They were vulnerable. And conveniently,

450
00:40:45,570 --> 00:40:53,070
the government had previously lumped them all together or the immunocompromised was in some form of group called clinically extremely vulnerable CEV,

451
00:40:53,610 --> 00:41:00,840
but then disband that program very, very quickly. And all they were really offering those people was to stay at home and not leave the house.

452
00:41:01,860 --> 00:41:05,570
Well, I think the clinically vulnerability also allowed them to get the Super Bowl. Yes, they could.

453
00:41:05,940 --> 00:41:09,000
Was it the government that the government named the most vulnerable?

454
00:41:09,090 --> 00:41:12,450
Didn't know why they're vulnerable. They just said you're vulnerable. But you can join the list.

455
00:41:12,690 --> 00:41:15,150
You can get your supermarket a bit better. You should stay at home.

456
00:41:15,390 --> 00:41:20,310
That's what they were told, didn't seem to be the greatest level of support, but at least have the list.

457
00:41:20,310 --> 00:41:25,440
But that list disappear very quickly. But they were still vulnerable and they were are forgotten.

458
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:31,770
500,000 people, you think about it, half a million people living at highest level, higher level of risk than the rest of us.

459
00:41:32,250 --> 00:41:39,780
That's quite a people. But they weren't links. I, I said I talked to the patients like I always do, and they're scared.

460
00:41:40,140 --> 00:41:43,710
But I said, Well, why don't you talk to each other and talk to doctors and scientists?

461
00:41:44,010 --> 00:41:48,660
And then we put together this coalition of close to 500 K His only job was to protect them,

462
00:41:49,260 --> 00:41:54,600
give them protection, and that was how we started protecting the vulnerable.

463
00:41:55,830 --> 00:41:57,510
And what were you able to offer them?

464
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:05,610
So firstly, the most important thing we did was for them to be listened and supported, because at the end of day,

465
00:42:05,610 --> 00:42:13,320
it's one person on chemotherapy in the house not able to go out scared, really risk and not knowing who you talk to.

466
00:42:13,710 --> 00:42:18,090
So the first thing that they had was they could talk to each other and support each other.

467
00:42:18,090 --> 00:42:22,230
And knowing that you're facing the most horrific risk or even a risk,

468
00:42:22,260 --> 00:42:26,340
it may not be horrific, but other people going the same thing was really good, actually.

469
00:42:26,790 --> 00:42:31,559
And they could also then came with the scientific community and be aware of what was happening.

470
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,920
Watching you. This is not as bad as you think it is or it's worse than you think it is.

471
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:40,979
But the truth was that and we also allowed them to link in with scientific community

472
00:42:40,980 --> 00:42:45,780
clinicians who are interested in this and let them know about clinical trials in development,

473
00:42:46,290 --> 00:42:55,410
um, and also tell them how they can exert change and change in our, in a democracy comes to Parliament.

474
00:42:55,950 --> 00:43:03,870
And so they went out there and started speaking to the right people, their own peers, and they went stamps and they had to go via video calls.

475
00:43:04,110 --> 00:43:08,990
And there was so much about how you make a voice when you call your four rooms of your youth,

476
00:43:09,060 --> 00:43:13,260
how you how you can make a noise if you can't protest, if you can't leave your house.

477
00:43:13,260 --> 00:43:18,810
And we actually talk many talk, many people will not see. Your MP will probably do a zoom call with you.

478
00:43:19,250 --> 00:43:24,329
And Zoom is a way of communicating in the moments. Probably won't be one when people listen.

479
00:43:24,330 --> 00:43:31,860
But that was really good and they made that noise and we spoke as one voice on this, on this about the fact that not everyone benefits.

480
00:43:32,700 --> 00:43:40,829
And back to the data, what do we know now about what the level of risk is among those immunocompromised people?

481
00:43:40,830 --> 00:43:47,490
I mean, are they showing up in hospital with COVID or have they kept themselves so shut away that they've not been exposed?

482
00:43:47,500 --> 00:43:59,190
Yeah. So this is the shocking thing. And the risk at the moment is mitigated by the fact that somewhere around one in five is still doing shielding.

483
00:43:59,820 --> 00:44:05,850
20%. And they, they haven't left their houses since 2020.

484
00:44:07,170 --> 00:44:12,329
They don't go shopping, they don't go out, they don't go to restaurants. And where I mean, I went on holiday, I go to rest.

485
00:44:12,330 --> 00:44:20,940
I this restaurant is off them much as I used to. But these people, by the cost of 500, have not done that for three years.

486
00:44:20,940 --> 00:44:24,839
And again, this Christmas is a really hard one because it's their third Christmas.

487
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:30,330
They haven't spent time with family because they know that without immune system there could be an increase.

488
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:35,459
They just don't take that chance. Um, so yeah, it was really hard.

489
00:44:35,460 --> 00:44:39,730
It's really tough, actually. But are they?

490
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:44,860
Yes. I mean, I'm pushing the question, what are the figures for the number that went shut,

491
00:44:45,340 --> 00:44:48,610
the other four out of five who were not shutting them sit staying shut in the house?

492
00:44:48,670 --> 00:44:51,700
Yeah. Have they been falling ill with COVID?

493
00:44:52,060 --> 00:44:55,920
So, yes, I would say data shows that there are increased risk.

494
00:44:55,930 --> 00:45:03,550
Definitely. Yes. And so if I look at on average, you're looking at a three times more risk of dying from COVID.

495
00:45:04,630 --> 00:45:08,760
I varies that, but that's an average. So people always do better and do worse.

496
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:15,760
What we're seeing is that people would have transplants where their immune system completely obliterated that number can move into double figures,

497
00:45:15,770 --> 00:45:22,150
right? Um, but there are a small number, but small number of people with excess risk, really high excess risk,

498
00:45:22,630 --> 00:45:28,930
and that the default premise is not true, that they have no increased risk compared to the population.

499
00:45:29,110 --> 00:45:33,100
That is not true. If you mean a compromise and your vaccine hasn't worked.

500
00:45:33,550 --> 00:45:38,680
I mean, I have to go out there. They are at increased risk, full stop, no question about it.

501
00:45:39,010 --> 00:45:45,940
And therefore people will say these people are paranoid that immunocompromised people, the forgotten 500,000 people, paranoid.

502
00:45:47,470 --> 00:45:53,230
If I if you put yourself in that situation, my risk of death is higher than yours is at least three times.

503
00:45:53,650 --> 00:45:57,700
Um, I think they're making reasonable decisions based on information available.

504
00:45:58,150 --> 00:46:02,710
And that was what the challenge is getting information to them so they can make the right decision for them.

505
00:46:03,100 --> 00:46:10,750
Because you've got to weigh up. I'm seeing along this and friend is different from seeing your nephew or niece.

506
00:46:11,140 --> 00:46:15,760
They needed this information to to to take their two way every situation accordingly.

507
00:46:16,030 --> 00:46:20,660
And it's been really hard for them because they're continuously calculating their odds, um,

508
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:27,340
knowing that they may not knowing that they're stuck in 2020, whereas we've all move forward with vaccination.

509
00:46:27,370 --> 00:46:34,809
Yes. Yes. And I mean, I think it's probably true to say that certainly at the government level,

510
00:46:34,810 --> 00:46:43,860
there's there's no firm effort being made at the moment to suppress COVID infection in the country at large because the view is,

511
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:50,410
oh, everybody's been vaccinated or had it before. And so they will only get a mild dose.

512
00:46:51,220 --> 00:46:56,049
But for those 500,000 people, that means it's a dangerous environment.

513
00:46:56,050 --> 00:47:03,430
It continues to be a dangerous environment. And I mean, would you argue that that should influence policy on infection control?

514
00:47:05,260 --> 00:47:14,920
I don't know what time will tell. Actually, in 2022, we took a living with COVID policy, which ultimately means that it's treated like the flu,

515
00:47:15,310 --> 00:47:22,930
like any other disease, um, with the proviso that everyone's protected from hospitalisation.

516
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,100
But you look at that, so someone should go back and look at hospitalisations.

517
00:47:27,100 --> 00:47:33,580
That's a lot of people came to hospital, many people died. We've had like seven waves of COVID already, huge number of people infected.

518
00:47:34,810 --> 00:47:39,850
I kind of feel that the strategy that we need to focus a bit more on is you can live with it,

519
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:45,460
but let's protect the vulnerable to protect the 500 K, they're vulnerable to flu as well because you know, they are.

520
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,640
They are. But and we've had a really bad flu season.

521
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,709
Um, but getting COVID and flu at the same time point is not a good combination.

522
00:47:53,710 --> 00:48:00,430
And fortunately. Um, and would you, would I do you want me to go on the record and say, should we do more for the vulnerable?

523
00:48:00,790 --> 00:48:06,460
I think we should always do the most for the vulnerable in our community the UK, England, Great Britain.

524
00:48:06,670 --> 00:48:10,149
What sets the policies? We protect everyone.

525
00:48:10,150 --> 00:48:14,890
We take us all with us. Can we do more? I think we can always do more and we should have done more.

526
00:48:15,610 --> 00:48:19,120
And that's my opinion. Um, yeah.

527
00:48:19,330 --> 00:48:25,650
And if anything, it just means that some someone who's not had a Christmas in three years might have,

528
00:48:25,660 --> 00:48:29,920
might have had the third Christmas and go and see their nephew and felt empowered to do that.

529
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:37,780
And we could have made many lives a lot easier. And so, I mean, clearly you're somebody who's a voice, who's got a voice and uses it.

530
00:48:38,620 --> 00:48:43,870
And the beginning of this year, sorry, you know, beginning of last year,

531
00:48:43,870 --> 00:48:49,689
you joined in, decided instead to do it was end of last year, end to end of 1522.

532
00:48:49,690 --> 00:48:55,269
You joined an independent sage as it is. First of all, tell us about independent say what it what is it?

533
00:48:55,270 --> 00:48:58,999
What does it do for independence? Age is really interesting because they speak out.

534
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:04,120
So I think there's a there's a there's a difficulty in terms of speaking out

535
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:08,200
because you raised a head above the turret and you get shot down every so often.

536
00:49:09,310 --> 00:49:11,470
And I think it's really hard to do that by yourself.

537
00:49:12,070 --> 00:49:16,450
But when you got like one, the people saying, Well, this is what the data shows, this is why I believe.

538
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:22,000
And then it becomes quite nice, this whole group of people. So these are the bravest people.

539
00:49:22,210 --> 00:49:26,500
These are the bravest people because from 2020 they've been telling the truth.

540
00:49:26,710 --> 00:49:32,480
They've basically been saying or the inconvenient truth or the difficulties or the nuances.

541
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:37,840
Times and communities came out and they communicate out via channels that we use at the moment, like.

542
00:49:38,110 --> 00:49:41,660
YouTube and Twitter, and they've got a huge following.

543
00:49:41,690 --> 00:49:43,030
People want to know the truth.

544
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:52,150
And I think and and will go into nuances on the details so people can then decide that mostly doctors, epidemiologists, people.

545
00:49:52,190 --> 00:49:59,290
Yeah, exactly. With appropriate it so genuine experts from around the field all coming up

546
00:49:59,290 --> 00:50:04,450
and just saying what the inconvenient truths are and they liked what I mean.

547
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:08,560
I feel like they just appreciated that someone is speaking the truth about vulnerable people.

548
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:14,920
And they said, Well, would you mind sharing the data on this and talk with an independent sage?

549
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:20,889
And so I've been doing that for a couple of months now and just say, look, we need to do more to protect the vulnerable.

550
00:50:20,890 --> 00:50:26,379
We need to have new drugs available and we have immunisations for them and we need to protect them.

551
00:50:26,380 --> 00:50:28,780
And don't don't take your focus off the ball.

552
00:50:29,500 --> 00:50:35,829
Keep focusing on what's important and let's take everyone with us and we can live with COVID but do protect everyone.

553
00:50:35,830 --> 00:50:44,950
And that's what I've been saying and it's been an absolute preservation. These are people, people like Christina Pagel, Shona downie,

554
00:50:44,950 --> 00:50:48,459
I think they've been talking about for so long and actually be honest where they are at the moment.

555
00:50:48,460 --> 00:50:54,910
They are battle weary, but they're doing a fantastic job for the country because for the world they speak out on the truth here

556
00:50:55,210 --> 00:51:00,850
and I think the world is now more difficult place than it was in 2020 because we've got so many crises,

557
00:51:00,850 --> 00:51:07,870
we distract everyone's attention like a war, major war in Europe at the moment, and I'm sure which is causing energy repercussions.

558
00:51:07,870 --> 00:51:15,040
And even if on a go by Exxon so expensive. But the issue at the moment is should we be protecting the vulnerable?

559
00:51:15,790 --> 00:51:19,090
Can we live with COVID and do we have equity of protection?

560
00:51:19,390 --> 00:51:23,170
And it's a continues to speak on this point. It's a privilege.

561
00:51:23,500 --> 00:51:25,810
And do you think I mean, given that they are outside,

562
00:51:26,230 --> 00:51:32,620
they were set up because they felt that the official sage wasn't speaking the truth sufficiently.

563
00:51:34,570 --> 00:51:42,790
Can you say have you seen any evidence that the communications of independent Sage have influenced government policy at all,

564
00:51:42,790 --> 00:51:46,959
or is it more a question of influencing individual behaviour? Good question.

565
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:50,860
I would say, and I think Sage is interesting because it's not set for months at the moment.

566
00:51:50,860 --> 00:51:58,360
They are called when the government needs them and I think it's been three six months since they last set then gave recommendations.

567
00:51:58,750 --> 00:52:02,350
So I guess Sage is important and I, and I don't, I,

568
00:52:02,590 --> 00:52:06,310
I'm not against the United States most importantly God, but they need to be called and listened to.

569
00:52:07,180 --> 00:52:12,430
And I think eventually they will be called because we're in the midst of the most terrible situation with the pandemic at the moment.

570
00:52:12,700 --> 00:52:17,469
So many cases in the Christmas surge, what do you do next? But what is independent sage does?

571
00:52:17,470 --> 00:52:20,890
Well, it just as a truth for anyone who wants to listen.

572
00:52:21,910 --> 00:52:28,210
They the public clearly want to listen to it, which is fantastic that scientists want to listen to it, which is fantastic.

573
00:52:28,570 --> 00:52:35,889
And the politicians are always firefighting. But I think enough of them will listen to it, hopefully to to make their own views,

574
00:52:35,890 --> 00:52:39,730
because at the end of the day, the truth is not what you're told to believe.

575
00:52:39,730 --> 00:52:46,090
The truth is what the data shows and what the research shows. And I think that's what so makes me so proud about independence.

576
00:52:46,090 --> 00:52:50,650
They so they just continue to just hammer away the truth, even though it's inconvenient, even though it's hard.

577
00:52:50,950 --> 00:52:55,540
But the science shows what the science shows, and that's what the sage is both do.

578
00:52:56,290 --> 00:53:00,130
As soon as they keep looking at the data and saying what they said is that's important.

579
00:53:01,240 --> 00:53:05,260
And do I mean, do you have a personal voice? Do you have a Twitter account? I just don't think I did.

580
00:53:05,260 --> 00:53:10,780
I look, I do. I do. I do. I do have that before COVID began.

581
00:53:10,780 --> 00:53:18,040
When how long have you been on Twitter? So I've been on Twitter for a long time, but I think there needs to be good communications.

582
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:19,389
And I started my Twitter,

583
00:53:19,390 --> 00:53:26,350
but I've really ramped up recently because the public need to be able to hear from the scientist directly because you need to know who to trust.

584
00:53:26,950 --> 00:53:28,480
Let me be honest with you, I,

585
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:34,960
I even I struggle to know who to trust on Twitter at the moment because basically having a blue tick is just something you pay for.

586
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:40,990
But I think actually people need to be able to start communicating, take people on the journey,

587
00:53:40,990 --> 00:53:44,740
because if you're not working out where the nuance is, where the difficulties are,

588
00:53:45,220 --> 00:53:49,780
then you can't make the right decisions for yourself or your family because at the end of day,

589
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:54,190
you're just trying to live a normal life in a very difficult situation.

590
00:53:54,190 --> 00:53:58,030
The pandemic has not gone away yet. So I have to ask communicating.

591
00:53:58,240 --> 00:54:02,500
I'm not someone who do closed doors control by committees.

592
00:54:02,500 --> 00:54:07,570
That's not how I work. I think the most important thing is to talk to the people who you want to look after.

593
00:54:07,900 --> 00:54:12,889
I'll talk to my cancer patients happily on Twitter and try and get them nuances within the city.

594
00:54:12,890 --> 00:54:16,480
140 word limits. But I think more people should do the same,

595
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:21,549
communicate their science and communicate benefits and risks and uncertainty so people can make

596
00:54:21,550 --> 00:54:26,290
decisions and don't just force them to do things because you said so in a closed door somewhere.

597
00:54:26,950 --> 00:54:33,520
I think that's to the strength of Twitter. And do you I think you mentioned to me earlier that you had had some training in communication.

598
00:54:34,180 --> 00:54:37,780
Yes, absolutely. So. And communications had really interest.

599
00:54:37,810 --> 00:54:46,750
Same thing because I communicate, because I've been trained as a doctor, I'll communicate many different levels of scientific lay academic.

600
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:55,030
But I have had other forms of communications which are a kind of and I love them from when I have media trained department health.

601
00:54:55,240 --> 00:54:59,350
That's completely different. And you're going to see different people communicate different ways.

602
00:55:00,100 --> 00:55:03,660
But I do the more doctor approach here. It's a two way conversation.

603
00:55:04,300 --> 00:55:07,330
You tell me what your priorities are. I'll tell you what you need to know. Yes.

604
00:55:09,370 --> 00:55:13,120
But you I mean, it's clearly a that comes across in the way you speak,

605
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:17,710
that you you know how to tailor what you're saying to the person you're speaking to,

606
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:21,910
which actually is a skill that not all scientists have by any means.

607
00:55:22,660 --> 00:55:26,360
I did not know that. I did not know that.

608
00:55:26,470 --> 00:55:31,810
I know there were lots of scientists who just took the way they do all the time, as if they're talking to colleagues.

609
00:55:32,260 --> 00:55:36,190
And they're really surprised if you tell them that the general public wouldn't understand what they just said.

610
00:55:37,850 --> 00:55:42,410
Oh, interesting. I mean, this this pandemic has brought scientists close with the public.

611
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:55,329
Yes. Actually, you need someone to bridge the gap because I can talk about SARS-CoV-2 and Anti and epitopes and G whatever mutation, XB 1.55.

612
00:55:55,330 --> 00:55:58,330
But actually, why can't I translate that?

613
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,170
Have I gone so far down means that I'm not going to speak in the same language.

614
00:56:03,580 --> 00:56:10,830
Maybe that's what's good about Oxford. We have our clinical academics who are both doctors where Dr. Harte and Clinical have,

615
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:17,560
but also people and will go out there and tell you what the science is and tell you the latest information in a way that everyone understands.

616
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,760
I didn't realise that that's how people see me.

617
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:28,180
Interesting. So what are your main priorities at the moment?

618
00:56:28,420 --> 00:56:31,960
Are you back in the lab? Have you got research going again? Yeah.

619
00:56:32,020 --> 00:56:32,700
And so?

620
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:40,480
So my main priorities at the moment are to protect the vulnerable, keep the focus on them, because I still don't think this pandemic is finished.

621
00:56:40,510 --> 00:56:43,989
Yes, I guess we'll know this in a few years time.

622
00:56:43,990 --> 00:56:48,490
Point. How many more waves, how many of those effects? And this is something that still come around the horizon.

623
00:56:48,490 --> 00:56:52,690
I hope it isn't. I hope it pans out. But you have to maintain both positions.

624
00:56:52,990 --> 00:56:58,750
Otherwise you make the wrong decisions here. Blinkered belief the pandemic is over is not going to get us anywhere.

625
00:56:59,410 --> 00:57:04,510
Some people believe that have this blinkered view of the moment. I think that we should still protect the vulnerable.

626
00:57:05,500 --> 00:57:09,460
The second thing that I'm working on is interesting, because I think that's a legacy in this pandemic.

627
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,010
No one's talked about the positives come out of it,

628
00:57:12,550 --> 00:57:20,590
and I don't worry about talking positive because it's been horrific for me and I've had to look after so many families in difficult situations,

629
00:57:20,860 --> 00:57:25,630
has been rife of all of us, and people have lost our loved ones. But what did we learn?

630
00:57:26,290 --> 00:57:30,040
Did we have lessons learnt? Where our success and how we can capitalise it.

631
00:57:30,310 --> 00:57:34,330
I see something exciting come around. The corner is the cancer vaccine.

632
00:57:35,860 --> 00:57:48,120
This is something that's really exciting. The COVID vaccine went from an idea in people's head in ten months to completed studies to the population.

633
00:57:48,130 --> 00:57:53,050
That's a year and a half, and it changed everyone's lives.

634
00:57:53,440 --> 00:58:00,459
There are huge benefits in that. Technology's easy to make. The next question is, well, you do that for the infrastructure.

635
00:58:00,460 --> 00:58:03,820
All these know how human knowledge has gained so much.

636
00:58:04,330 --> 00:58:08,890
What do you want to do now? You're letting go of your next target.

637
00:58:08,900 --> 00:58:12,520
Other major issues that we can help with. I think cancer is a major issue.

638
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:20,200
It affects 400,000 people in the UK and one in two of us will get it if we can test the hypothesis.

639
00:58:20,230 --> 00:58:26,710
We do the same studies that I did before beforehand, the country did beforehand that you could stop cancer coming back.

640
00:58:26,980 --> 00:58:30,640
You could provide long term protection. I think we should give it a go.

641
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:35,829
I think there is. And I think ultimately I think we've done so much.

642
00:58:35,830 --> 00:58:42,370
But one of the most amazing things is the advancement in scientific endeavour, in vaccine development,

643
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:49,240
in research and clinical trials that then enables us to have developed the cancer vaccine in record time.

644
00:58:49,780 --> 00:58:52,659
Don't know this yet. Let's see where this is going to go. And is it I mean,

645
00:58:52,660 --> 00:58:56,500
there have been a big red read of a case recently of somebody who was given a

646
00:58:56,500 --> 00:59:01,540
very personalised treatment based on antigens on their own specific tumours.

647
00:59:03,460 --> 00:59:09,220
Do you think such a cancer vaccine would need to be that individually targeted, or do you think,

648
00:59:09,970 --> 00:59:17,710
given the current state of knowledge there might be a target discovered that would work for a wide range of cancers?

649
00:59:17,740 --> 00:59:20,740
Good question. The personalised versus the off the shelf vaccine.

650
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:27,999
At the moment all our COVID vaccines are off the shelf, but personalised ones, there's many, many different technology providers.

651
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:31,180
We now can personalise the vaccine for you against your cancer.

652
00:59:31,930 --> 00:59:36,340
And the most amazing thing is that they can, if you go to the factory, they'll make it for you.

653
00:59:36,970 --> 00:59:41,250
The critical. A missing piece is proving it works. And how quickly can you do it?

654
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:46,049
We proved the covaxin in ten months. I don't know how quickly to prove the cancer vaccine,

655
00:59:46,050 --> 00:59:51,810
but I would encourage them to go very quickly because now we've got manufacturing source and we've got the technology there.

656
00:59:51,930 --> 00:59:56,820
We can do the delivery I. We just need to supercharge the model bit like we did the pandemic response.

657
00:59:57,270 --> 00:59:59,340
And I think the personalised ones are really interesting.

658
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:05,910
It, it is tailored to the genetic mutations of that cancer where any abnormalities, where the cancer is,

659
01:00:05,910 --> 01:00:09,590
you're priming the immune system, you give it a blueprint of what a cancer looks like.

660
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:13,890
So your immune system, which didn't really know what cancer was and therefore let it spread everywhere,

661
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:18,240
can automatically say, Well, I see a cancer there. That's eats it up now.

662
01:00:18,380 --> 01:00:21,690
That solve it. This could be long term protection of a cancer.

663
01:00:22,380 --> 01:00:27,270
We don't know until we've tried it. And it's whether the world is brave enough to try it.

664
01:00:27,870 --> 01:00:32,940
And are you personally engaged in looking for those kind of targets in your lab?

665
01:00:33,990 --> 01:00:41,700
So we're really future thinking in Oxford. And I think all four of us have understood that this is where the potential can be as a country, actually.

666
01:00:42,150 --> 01:00:48,840
The UK announced quite an ambitious plan to see 10,000 cancer patients to be tested with these cancer vaccines.

667
01:00:49,170 --> 01:00:52,470
And I think they said that we're going to start in September.

668
01:00:53,460 --> 01:00:57,270
And actually I did want to make my part in any bigger than anyone else's.

669
01:00:57,270 --> 01:01:02,730
But actually this is a collective effort. Everything we've done together, the countries collective effort from the very end,

670
01:01:03,000 --> 01:01:07,140
the nurses and doctors, the people on the ground, the patients, this cannot be done.

671
01:01:07,650 --> 01:01:13,020
It's concerted effort, just like all the other things like the COBRA cancer program, the lateral flow,

672
01:01:13,740 --> 01:01:19,290
the forgotten 500 is when, when, when we all get behind something, push it together just a short period of time.

673
01:01:19,530 --> 01:01:25,139
That's what we'll get it over the line. So, yeah, I'll play my part, I think by actually, or everyone's going to play their part in this.

674
01:01:25,140 --> 01:01:33,730
And it's an exciting time because this is the chance where we can learn from the pandemic and solve a second disease and make huge strides there.

675
01:01:34,350 --> 01:01:38,460
That's great. So I'm just going to ask one or two more questions about are you okay for time?

676
01:01:38,540 --> 01:01:42,689
Yeah. About how the pandemic affected you personally.

677
01:01:42,690 --> 01:01:49,230
So, I mean, first of all, how threatened did you feel by the virus itself, by the possibility of actually catching it?

678
01:01:50,590 --> 01:02:01,000
I felt really vulnerable and threatened. Um, I remember staying up late at night and asked that the naughty question.

679
01:02:01,390 --> 01:02:04,570
The naughty question that every doctor thought about in 2020.

680
01:02:06,250 --> 01:02:17,320
If the virus hit UK shores. And if I went into hospital and I got put out and know there's a real chance me dying, would I still keep coming to work?

681
01:02:19,910 --> 01:02:26,160
I will. Doctors have that question in the head. Should I just stay home like the population is okay?

682
01:02:26,180 --> 01:02:29,630
If you're at home, you're safe. You go to the hospital and treat every person. You're not safe.

683
01:02:29,870 --> 01:02:33,530
You are the most highest level of risk way to do that.

684
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:42,860
And I debate that all weekend. And you know what? Me, along with every other doctor NHS, said, Actually, no, we're going to work.

685
01:02:43,910 --> 01:02:50,810
I mean, I just think that was the critical point when you knew that you shouldn't go into the where there was a major outbreaks COVID everywhere.

686
01:02:51,170 --> 01:02:57,530
You're going to try your best to help people who are sick with COVID. We'll give them what little treatments we got, but we're still come to work.

687
01:02:57,530 --> 01:03:05,750
And no nurse gave up, no doctor gave up. And yeah, it's actually quite amazing to think about that decision again because it was such a hard one.

688
01:03:05,790 --> 01:03:11,090
Yes, everyone went through it. I think other people, some people with Matthew said, we'll go through no matter what will happen.

689
01:03:11,570 --> 01:03:15,230
Other people debated it for longer than I did, but we all went in.

690
01:03:15,740 --> 01:03:21,080
Incredible. And did you end up working in A&E? We didn't. I didn't kind of feel like I said, yeah, that's how I am.

691
01:03:21,590 --> 01:03:31,340
I got redeployed. We moved on to these horrific shifts where doctors were doing 13 hour shifts continuously, 13 hour, 13 hour sets now, 13 hour.

692
01:03:31,730 --> 01:03:34,230
And we pushed and the nurses to us.

693
01:03:34,230 --> 01:03:44,150
Then I think there were periods where we were crying for our patients because the death was so quick, like we never knew a virus like this.

694
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:50,989
You patient could go from the first day chatting, eating, and then I'm 40 dead in the middle of night.

695
01:03:50,990 --> 01:03:57,979
And we were not used to this. Not I mean, I'm not used to this cancer that takes people in months, two years or some people and days.

696
01:03:57,980 --> 01:04:02,390
But this was I was terrifying. So that was really tough.

697
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:07,639
Yeah, it affected me. Daphne as a doctor and I moved across.

698
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:10,760
I fished people out and I had to do this horrific maths, which we didn't.

699
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:16,160
We know how to use it. That starts the ones which are battery powered and blow up a little balloon over your head.

700
01:04:16,550 --> 01:04:24,680
And they kept changing to depending on what people thought was the safer so and the multiple steps to put on a gown so no

701
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:32,030
skin was showing Oh goodness that was like we all had to be retrained and then you had to do that several times a day.

702
01:04:32,180 --> 01:04:36,110
Yeah, exactly. To try and keep us safe and.

703
01:04:36,860 --> 01:04:43,909
Yeah, because none of us were vaccinated at that time. Point I'm an Asian male to risk factors automatically with asthma.

704
01:04:43,910 --> 01:04:49,820
Three risk factors. Goodness. I but again, the doctors all had to fill these risk assessment charts.

705
01:04:50,030 --> 01:04:54,830
But what was incredible, even doctors take five things they said, Actually,

706
01:04:55,220 --> 01:05:02,959
I know that I'm obese, Asian or male co-morbidities, but I still want to help my patients.

707
01:05:02,960 --> 01:05:07,280
And they did it. So many people did do that. And they said, I'll take the risk to help the patients.

708
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:11,180
And yeah, affected us all. But and it did you do you ever get it in the end.

709
01:05:11,450 --> 01:05:15,400
Yeah it did And it was horrible for you'd been vaccinated for a while.

710
01:05:15,410 --> 01:05:20,959
This is a surprising thing. I don't know how this happened, but like I was in a and they, I did all the moonshot sites.

711
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:24,530
I went for every outbreak with all the masses. So getting all the people involved.

712
01:05:24,770 --> 01:05:29,890
And by sheer chance, I managed to stay away from it. Until when was it Last year?

713
01:05:29,900 --> 01:05:35,090
2022, when I was vaccinated and got it. I think it's because after vaccination we went.

714
01:05:35,090 --> 01:05:39,080
We went to live with COVID and it just went rampant. That's when I got it as well.

715
01:05:39,100 --> 01:05:44,770
Okay. June last year, Yes, it was horrible disease. I felt so bad, like worse than flu.

716
01:05:44,780 --> 01:05:50,870
They said it was I live halfway through. I said that I don't know if I need to go to hospital or not because I felt so terrible.

717
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,190
How was it for you? What I barely noticed, really.

718
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:57,770
And really the only thing that seemed odd was a bit of low back pain. Wow.

719
01:05:57,780 --> 01:06:03,410
And I looked it up and found something that said that in South Africa they'd found that was a symptom of emigrant.

720
01:06:04,910 --> 01:06:10,040
And I have a tiny tickle in my throat, but I'm slightly asthmatic too, so that's fairly normal.

721
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:17,230
I wasn't ill at all. I wasn't tired, nothing. But I was showing positive on lateral flow for ten days.

722
01:06:17,300 --> 01:06:21,740
I see. And I thought my dad actually. And then maybe it's all genetics.

723
01:06:21,740 --> 01:06:25,190
And I took to bed. I could couldn't walk up the stairs.

724
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:28,610
I struggled to ease, couldn't breathe. It was the worst.

725
01:06:28,730 --> 01:06:31,010
And your dad? Your dad had the same. Yeah.

726
01:06:31,010 --> 01:06:38,629
So I think we've probably all got horrible stories, but my dad had it in the pre-vaccination and because he he's actually also a doctor.

727
01:06:38,630 --> 01:06:44,480
He's an IBM professor at UCL, but he was also one of these people that ticked all the boxes, the major risk for COVID.

728
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:48,620
And he still went in. But unfortunately on the on the roll of the dice, he got it.

729
01:06:49,310 --> 01:06:50,150
He got really unwell.

730
01:06:50,150 --> 01:06:57,920
Actually, he could he was far worse and I would be because I guess he's older and I was actually really worried if he was going to survive or not.

731
01:06:57,950 --> 01:07:08,330
But he hospitalised. We, he sat to the border but at that time point that you were the basket in hospital so high, um, he had clots in his lungs too.

732
01:07:08,780 --> 01:07:15,890
And, and I went down to, I had to go take off a few days to make sure that he would survive, that he did, thank God.

733
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:24,100
But I mean, I think there were. One who knew someone about Cove in 2020 knew someone who they weren't sure was going to survive it or not.

734
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:29,530
And you just hope and pray at that time with no drugs, no treatments.

735
01:07:30,310 --> 01:07:38,170
We just had oxygen and fluids. And if you get the hospital, if you do get a hospital, you just have prayers and love.

736
01:07:38,450 --> 01:07:43,029
And then he got through it, which is amazing. But it really affected me then.

737
01:07:43,030 --> 01:07:47,230
And this is why I feel so passionate about protecting vulnerable because.

738
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:51,910
The pandemic is a killer. It can be a killer still.

739
01:07:53,230 --> 01:07:56,460
If you've been vaccinated and you respond to, fine, but it can be killer.

740
01:07:56,470 --> 01:07:59,830
And some people are stuck in that 2020 episode, like my dad.

741
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:02,650
And it's still happening up and down the country now.

742
01:08:03,190 --> 01:08:08,170
And then the stories in 2020, if people would just go out for dinner and then having no one coming home,

743
01:08:08,620 --> 01:08:13,600
they all went to hospital after that because they all die from COVID. That is how some people still live now.

744
01:08:14,470 --> 01:08:20,170
But it has affected me and it has affected many family members and me being Asian, some people have died.

745
01:08:20,170 --> 01:08:25,740
So we all bear the scars of this pandemic and do so.

746
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:29,470
Yeah, even when you've clearly been through from some through some horrendous times,

747
01:08:30,130 --> 01:08:34,840
did the fact that you were working on something important helped to support your wellbeing, do you think?

748
01:08:36,370 --> 01:08:39,519
Yes, I think it did. I think it did.

749
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:45,460
It gave me gave me a mission and it's completely derailed my career where thoughts are going to be but gave me a mission of help.

750
01:08:45,700 --> 01:08:49,540
And actually there are so many people who stood up and said,

751
01:08:49,540 --> 01:08:56,050
I want to help the pandemic of Iraqi workers that didn't die, but for me personally gave me a mission and ambition.

752
01:08:56,500 --> 01:08:59,260
I think other people do different things in lockdown, like paint.

753
01:08:59,260 --> 01:09:07,299
The houses did all the work, but I'm glad that I was deemed good enough to help with the pandemic response.

754
01:09:07,300 --> 01:09:14,290
And I've worked very hard to like many people and and yeah, it gave me mission and it's something that still drives me to this day.

755
01:09:14,410 --> 01:09:19,870
I'm going for the greater good here. And yeah, so this is my final question.

756
01:09:21,610 --> 01:09:26,470
So has the public mostly answered it, but they give you a chance to say some more if you want to.

757
01:09:26,590 --> 01:09:33,190
Has the experience of living through that period changed your attitude or your approach to your work,

758
01:09:33,190 --> 01:09:39,100
and what would you like to see change in the future? Yeah, it has changed everything, I think.

759
01:09:39,550 --> 01:09:44,800
Well, I'm sat here in 2023. You can't most people can't see that tectonic shifts have happened.

760
01:09:44,800 --> 01:09:48,010
But I can because I've lived through and I've been lucky to see all of that.

761
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:51,950
Um, I think maybe three main areas that I see has shifted.

762
01:09:52,930 --> 01:09:55,690
Scientific progress has accelerated.

763
01:09:55,690 --> 01:10:04,030
I use the word hyper accelerated because things happen in months to years, which by right should have taken 1020 years in 2019.

764
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:11,770
Like I don't I see this in Oxford is happening across all of our research programs like the vaccine panoramic recovery.

765
01:10:11,950 --> 01:10:16,270
All of our programs are supercharged and it's all happening in the UK.

766
01:10:16,570 --> 01:10:24,460
I don't know why the UK has been this epicentre of innovation for the pandemic, but we are the epicentre of innovation for the pandemic.

767
01:10:24,670 --> 01:10:27,760
We have punched above our weight so we mustn't lose that.

768
01:10:29,020 --> 01:10:35,580
The second thing is beyond the science is that the public are backing us as a science superpower.

769
01:10:35,590 --> 01:10:38,890
All of a in the public can be interested about many different things,

770
01:10:39,280 --> 01:10:43,930
but there are new breed of people coming up now which will communicate the public and say, Look what you want to achieve.

771
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:49,330
Let's help you get there. Do you want to solve cancer? Well, if you back us, of course we'll try our hardest to.

772
01:10:49,630 --> 01:10:56,530
The scientists will take the public with the system as opposed to doing our bit where we know we're working on its own issues

773
01:10:56,770 --> 01:11:01,840
and don't tell anyone about it and push down on this single area for 30 years and maybe something will come out of it.

774
01:11:02,050 --> 01:11:07,960
We are now in line with what the public needs. So I think the science is better, the public is better.

775
01:11:08,920 --> 01:11:15,310
And also I think it is that the nature of who we are as a country going forward.

776
01:11:15,800 --> 01:11:20,080
Um, we were just a little country on the edge of Europe beforehand,

777
01:11:20,500 --> 01:11:27,100
but actually we realised that we do have the skills, we can work together and we can lead ideas going forward.

778
01:11:27,610 --> 01:11:35,920
And the ideas I would say would be that we can treat cancer patients, the pandemic we can use, we can get a new test which can diagnose COVID,

779
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:44,440
we can have the October AstraZeneca vaccine, we will benefit the Third World and we will lead in all things which are good.

780
01:11:44,740 --> 01:11:49,060
And that confidence, which is emerging slowly from our country,

781
01:11:49,450 --> 01:11:56,859
will probably still need to be nurtured by government politicians in order to keep our eye on the ball.

782
01:11:56,860 --> 01:12:05,860
But it puts a future where we're not just following, but it can influence and help many, many more people and a vaccine to this.

783
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:11,890
I hope we do play our part with a counter vaccine too, and the 10,000 people will start to benefit the world too.

784
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:21,099
Um, but I think it's those three things here and the flourishing of science to taking the public with us and potentially where

785
01:12:21,100 --> 01:12:27,879
our country starts to evolve and innovate and really start to have a bit more of a role in this life sciences space.

786
01:12:27,880 --> 01:12:33,250
Because at the end of day that is where we are doing really well and hopefully will continue to do well.