Britain’s vaccine minister revealed his uncle died with coronavirus in an emotional interview where he promised to vaccinate the country’s most vulnerable and protect the whole nation.
Nadhim Zahawi appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today to answer questions from presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid about the country’s ongoing pandemic response.
Mr Zahawi, 53, was grilled about the UK’s high death toll, with more than 100,000 now dead, and told Piers and Susanna the issue was ‘painful’ and ‘closer to home than you think’.
When asked what he meant by that, an emotional Mr Zahawi replied: ‘I lost my uncle last week to Covid.
‘But you’re right, it is grim and horrible, but our way out of this is the vaccination programme.
Nadhim Zahawi appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today to answer questions from presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid about the country’s ongoing pandemic response
‘It makes me angry, but it makes me determined to make sure we vaccinate the most vulnerable people in our country, protect them as quickly as possible and then protect the whole nation.
‘That is our way out of this, that is, ultimately, what we will do and I promise you that I will make sure that happens.’
Piers and Susanna offered condolences to the minister, asking if he had a vaccine or had been entitled to get one.
Mr Zahawi said: ‘He was entitled to one, sadly, he got Covid before he got the vaccine.
‘Obviously you have to wait 28 days until someone recovers before you can vaccinate them and he didn’t make it.’
Mr Zahawi was born in Baghdad to Kurdish parents in 1967, and fled under threat of persecution from Saddam Hussein’s regime, moving to Britain with his family when he was 9.
He grew up in Sussex and was educated at King’s College School in West London and University College London, where he studied Chemical Engineering.
He founded market research company YouGov, which now employs over 400 people on three continents, in 2000.
He floated the company on the London Stock Exchange in 2005.
In January 2010 he stood down from YouGov to run for election as Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon, and was made Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 26 July 2019.
He was also appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care on 28 November 2020.
His pledge to vaccinate Britain’s most vulnerable came amid warnings that the EU will ‘poison’ relations for ‘a generation’ if it follows through on extraordinary threats to block Pfizer vaccines going to the UK.
Ministers insisted they are ‘confident’ supplies will be maintained, but amid a shambolic rollout across the bloc, Brussels has demanded drug firms give them early warning when exporting Covid jabs to countries outside the 27 member states, including tens of millions of doses destined for Britain.
Mr Zahawi insisted this morning that the UK’s huge push to get the four most vulnerable groups covered by mid-February will not be derailed.
But the sabre-rattling incensed senior MPs, with health secretary Jeremy Hunt slamming ‘vaccine nationalism’ and saying the EU must not block supplies that have been bought ‘legally and fairly’.
Meanwhile, there is another row raging after two German newspapers claimed the EU’s regulator could refuse to give the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab full approval, with officials anonymously briefing its efficacy for pensioners was just eight per cent.
However, the claim was branded ‘absolutely incorrect’ and ‘unsubstantiated’ by the pharmaceutical company – and No10 sources told MailOnline is was ‘rubbish’.
Mr Zahawi, 53, was grilled about the UK’s high death toll, with more than 100,000 now dead, and told Piers and Susanna the issue was ‘painful’ and ‘closer to home than you think’
One Whitehall source told Playbook it was the kind of tactics ‘you expect from the Russians’.
Mr Zahawi also told GMB: ‘We don’t know where this unsubstantiated report came from, it’s not true, this eight per cent figure is complete nonsense.’
Tory MP Damian Collins suggested the briefing was connected to wrangling between the EU and AstraZeneca – which is based in the UK, whereas Pfizer has a manufacturing hub in Belgium – over access to supplies. ‘Either way it is dangerous and irresponsible and only helps the anti vaccine movement,’ he said.
Mr Zahawi told Sky News: ‘I’m confident they [Pfizer] will deliver the quantities we need to hit our mid-February deadline and beyond that. Pfizer will deliver to us. I’m sure they will deliver to the UK, EU and the rest of the world. I’m confident that will be able to vaccinate the entire adult population by the Autumn.’