‘It was like being on a warfront for two years’

When I was asked in May 2020 to chair the UK Vaccine Taskforce to hunt for a vaccine, we faced a daunting task: no vaccine had ever been successfully developed against any human coronavirus, so we had no play book to follow.

The pace was relentless. And there were many surreal moments, from using pizza boxes as a substitute for the Pfizer vaccine containers to stress test the delivery system, to pacing in the garden to get phone signal for important calls.

There were frustrations and some lows but these were more than offset by the massive highs. When the Pfizer vaccine data came through at 94 per cent efficacy – we were hoping for around 50 per cent – I danced around my kitchen table and went for a celebratory run on the Welsh hills with our neighbour’s wonderful dog Gruff.

Ours was a busy house during lockdown. My husband was running the furlough scheme at the Treasury and two of my children were completing their university work remotely so we rarely saw each other. But if I ever had a spare moment, I went running out in the hills or round the lanes at night with a super-bright head torch.

It was a great privilege in all – and one moment will always stand out. We have a lovely man who comes and cleans our windows. He’s done this for years and is very good at it… but he’s never really said anything to me before. Then, one day in early 2021, when he came to do the windows, he asked ‘Can I say something?’ I said ‘Yes, of course’. And he just replied ‘fucking good job’. That made my day.

Go-to meal after a long day of work? Any Ottolenghi dish with my home grown vegetables.

It was like being on a warfront for two years and I’ve struggled transitioning away from that and getting used to ordinary university life again.

When you’ve been doing something that intense and serious, with that much responsibility hanging over you, I think whatever comes afterwards is going to be difficult to adjust to. It’s as simple as that.

Given the days were so long – typically 16 hours at the start – you just have to chop the job into bits, into daily chunks.

I would say to myself: ‘I do the best I can today and when it goes quiet, when the calls stop, when the emails slow down towards the end of the evening, then that's it. You’ve done the very best you can, you've done a good day's work. You're entitled to go to sleep, go for a run, have a gin and tonic, watch a bit of football on the TV. You're entitled to relax.’

I've got a brilliant family. They were absolutely supportive all the way through. They understood, even the little ones, the pressure and the responsibility and what this was about. They set me free to get on and do it.

Shore fishing was my means of escape during the pandemic. For me, it blends moments of tranquillity and isolation with contrasting moments of intense concentration; but on something very basic (hunting for food) rather than the complex world of public health policy and infectious diseases. When it was safe and legal to do so, 24 hours out of the firing line on a north Norfolk beach was pure solace and recuperation, leaving me ready to go again.

Aspect of pre-Covid life that you missed the most during lockdown? Watching Boston United on a Saturday afternoon.

The Meadows feels like the lungs of Edinburgh, and with its location right next to the university, it was where my life was largely centred around during the pandemic.

It’s where I escaped to run and reflect on the latest Covid data and what the best scientific advice would be on schools or testing to governments. All while listening to Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.

When it was permitted in Autumn 2020, I joined an outdoor bootcamp and met a group of fantastic women who kept me going through the difficult days with burpees, singing and laughter.

I stayed out in all weather, except for one day – while doing a plank in the snow, I felt like I was losing my fingers to frostbite. It’s the only time I gave up.

People coped during the pandemic in different ways: the winter lockdown in Christmas 2020/21 was especially hard. We knew vaccines would be arriving soon, but not soon enough to avoid a huge wave in infections, hospitalisations, deaths, and accompanying restrictions.

We knew children needed to get back to in-person learning, but that unions wanted their teachers and school staff to be safe from severe illness and death. The scientific advice was sober, and the political decisions excruciating.

There were no easy decisions or ways for life to look like it did before Covid-19 then: only various paths and choices, all with major costs. The Meadows was where I escaped to think. I needed to orient my day around something other than work – and exercise became the focal point, whether indoors or outdoors.

Aspect of pre-Covid life that you missed the most during lockdown? Anonymity.

It was full on – eyeballs out for months at a time, with very little decompression. For the first eight months, it was every day to 10pm and even midnight, working every weekend, too, at least four to eight hours. It was pretty hard.

You get to a point where you start to burn out. I’m now much better at recognising when I’m starting to get fatigued and jaded. When that happens, you need to take time out for yourself.

For me, it was the mundane stuff: just relaxing at home, a glass of wine with my wife, or watching telly. I’m a runner and particularly in Covid, I took up windsurfing. There’s a reservoir near my house that’s got one of the biggest windsurfing clubs in the country; learning a new sport out on the water was a real release.

The opening months of the pandemic were the worst for abuse. I was quite high profile because I was chairman of Nervtag [a sub-group of Sage dedicated to new and emerging virus threats] and chief investigator of Recovery [a UK trial which showed that dexamethasone was effective at treating hospitalised Covid patients].

It was my first time experiencing social media abuse, which was quite unpleasant. The stuff that hurt the most, I think, was the professional stuff where you’re getting undermined by colleagues.

I did think quite frequently about stepping back from media work, as you just think is the inevitable pushback worth it, but you’re kind of torn because you feel you've got a duty to communicate with the public.

Proudest moment of the pandemic? That's easy – finding out dexamethasone saved lives. Seeing that first graph on the computer, and thinking ‘shit, it works!’

I grew up on the Somerset-Dorset border and home for the last 23 years has been the village of Winscombe on the edge of the Mendip hills. If you go out of our back door and walk straight up the hill you get to the top of Wavering Down, where you can see for miles in all directions.

The Somerset levels stretch out beneath you with Glastonbury Tor to the far left, Exmoor to the right and the Welsh Hills behind you. It’s an ancient English landscape full of raw beauty and history. 

In the very rare moments when I had time during Covid, I would go up on the hill for a walk, sometimes with my family and sometimes, early in the morning, just with my dog. Fresh air and exercise are how I decompress, and Wavering Down always helped to put any stress in perspective and remind me how incredibly lucky I was, especially during Covid, to be able to walk in such a beautiful place.

Sometimes we had TV crews outside our house, shouting every time we came out, which worried my daughters, but we could sneak up through the woods and onto the hill unnoticed and pretend for half an hour that all was normal again.

Your go-to meal after a long day of work? Cheese and tomato toastie.

Throughout the toughest periods of the pandemic, my wife was my constant, unwavering support. Each weekend, she would insist that we invest a few hours in going for a short walk to “have some fresh air”.

One of our favourite walking areas was amongst the many paths close to Dale Abbey, in Derbyshire, and The Cowshed tearoom. These walks provided us with important space to spend time together and to reflect on the many changing events around us.

The pandemic created turmoil and suffering for everyone. Our walks proved to be opportunities for organising thoughts and for reflecting on the many people displaying enormous kindness, courage and kinship throughout the week. In the midst of hard times, it was good to seek out reasons to be thankful.

From one of the paths, there is a view of a solitary tree standing tall at the crest of a rise, remarkable in its contrast to the surrounding fields. The apparent calm constancy of that tree resolute against the shifting skies is one of the joys of that walk.

During many periods of the pandemic, we were keenly aware of friends living in other countries who had to face tougher restrictions to their freedoms – what they would have given to replace pale grey concrete for a field of waving grass. This pandemic has afflicted so many lives. We hope no future pandemic will strike as deeply.

Your go-to meal after a long day of work? A mug of strong Yorkshire tea.

The pebble beach at Aldeburgh and the coast further along at Thorpeness – whether in cold, grey, North Sea storms, or expansive sunny summer skies – is my lifetime natural haunt to unwind, destress, and reconsider the universe and my place in it.

As a small child I spent every summer holiday here with my family. In my formative teens I worked in the craft shops owned by my wonderful great Auntie Muriel – a potter and artist. Almost every year of my adult life, including this recent pandemic, I have gone back to recharge my batteries.

I have many happy memories from our holidays at Aldeburgh: our dogs on the beach, sailing yachts on the boat pond, the regatta on the Mere nearby, the same small fishing boats being repainted and netted. My mother’s last ever holiday photo was taken on the beach, too.

Being able to visit the beach, once allowed to do so, restored my physical and mental health during the tough times of the pandemic. Helping deliver a critically important mission of protection for the population, the very essence of my professional job, also gave me energy.

When it comes to criticism from the public, for me the most important thing is to put yourself in the position of the people you are trying to support and always to lead and work by your values.

My family also had a hard time getting used to me being continuously under public scrutiny and criticism – at one point I had to specifically advise all of my children on personal safety.

That said, I’m regularly stopped by people in the street, whether in London or back home in Wales, who want to thank me and my colleagues for our work. It’s the criticism that makes good headlines, but the thanks seem to last much longer in my experience.

Favourite TV programme of the pandemic? Escape to the Country!

I spent most of the pandemic at home mostly with my family. We live on the Thames and have the river at the bottom of our garden.

My wife and I are both avid scullers and taking the boat out early in the morning proved to be a remarkable break for both of us. The rest of the day was spent on calls and in virtual meetings.

It was seven days a week for most of the first year, starting early and ending late at night. It was exhausting but also very interesting and challenging as we discovered new features of this new disease on a weekly basis. It was hard to stop as our work was having a major impact.

I had a little social media noise but for me the swell of positive comments was significant. People appreciated being told honestly and clearly what was happening and that it would be alright in the end.

We have two daughters at university, both of whom caught Covid early on. One was very sick and locked up in her dorm. That was a concerning time for us.

The kids were mostly worried about whether I was going to get infected through my work. When we were all at home, the evening meal was a great time to meet up together. In the spring and summer we would eat outside, which helped us all to decompress. We had very little tension in the family – our biggest gripe was when the internet underperformed.

Proudest moment? Our work with Astra Zeneca on the vaccine, which saved an estimated six million lives globally.

I don’t think that there's been a lot of recognition of the impact that working in the pandemic response had on personal life. Because it wasn’t just decision-makers having to work silly hours, it was the people who had to provide the data to them so they could make their decisions.

We worked in shifts at the beginning and it was 12-hour days, if not more. For three nights, I’d stay in a hotel right next to our office, as by the time I’d finished, it was so late and wouldn’t be worth making the journey out of London to head home. Thursdays and Fridays I’d deal with “non-Covid” work, and I’d often do weekend shifts too.

My life is always a juggle, trying to manage everything. So when the pandemic came, it really threw the whole balance out. And I think that with that came the strain on family life.

The number of hours I was working, the unsociable hours, working in the hotel away from my family – it put a lot of pressure on my relationship with my wife. But we got through it all. Watching TV and going for walks with our son Luther in his wheelchair was always therapeutic and helped everyone de-stress.

Now every weekend we try to keep one full day free where we don’t plan anything, like during lockdown, and dedicate that time to each other.

Proudest achievement? I helped develop the surveillance system to monitor deaths, which was used throughout the pandemic and helped inform the response. On a personal level, David Spiegelhalter, who is a god among us data geeks, put me in the acknowledgements of one of his books. That was a fantastic feeling.

I had it much easier than most, with no children to educate or ageing parents to worry about; just me, my partner and the dog, and with good commons for walking nearby. And to be honest the simplified life suited me – fewer arrangements to make and people to see, and more time to read, cook nice food and catch up on TV.

I was dealing with continuous requests for media appearances, and had to be ready to explain all the current statistics, while also politely fending off questions about what should be done, who was to blame and so on. I wonder how many other people on ‘Any Questions’ have simply refused to answer a question because this was not their job?

The front room was set up as a studio, with lights and the computer positioned at eye-height – fortunately I realised I could set up my own autocue, by scrolling through my notes just below the green camera dot. So it would look like I was chatting spontaneously and had all the numbers in my mind, whereas I was actually keeping to a very tightly prepared set of points.

Being old, white, and not very controversial, I largely escaped online abuse. After a newspaper article on vaccines, we were told on Twitter that we “were genocidal and should be destroyed”, but my co-author made light of it: “A bit harsh, I thought it was a good article.”

The pressure did become stressful at times. Then I remembered that as a boy I used to retreat to a large cardboard box when I wanted some peace, and so I constructed a substitute from clothes-lines and duvet-covers in the corner of the room, a tiny ‘den’ in which no electronics were allowed, and from which even the dog was banned. Everyone should have one.

Your proudest achievement of the pandemic? Getting on Desert Island Discs.

My experience during this pandemic has been one of widespread dismissal by the academic community as well as that of downright slander from many quarters, including some of the most powerful players and former friends.

Being able to go on long walks with my dog, Maisie, was the perfect antidote to these events.

In fact, my personal experience of lockdown was generally extremely pleasant as both my daughters came home – one was in the final year of her degree and the other had just started a training contract in a law firm and both were able to continue online in these endeavours. 

Others were not so fortunate and my thoughts were constantly occupied by the plight of the poor, and particularly of vulnerable children, who suffered during lockdowns.

I, and the handful of academics who joined me, were unsuccessful in opening up the debate on our pandemic response – speaking out was the only option as I sat in the comfort of my home, enjoying the company of my family, cooking delicious meals together and spoiling Maisie with endless walks and cuddles. 

Aspect of lockdown that you actually came to tolerate: Finding out who my real friends are…

During the pandemic, my days involved tackling big questions on a small screen. The vast emptiness of our local woods therefore gave me space to pause and reflect. Darkness and mist faded into spring as the Alpha wave subsided. Bluebells suddenly appeared when Delta took off. Long rays of summer sunshine accompanied our second vaccines.

It was clear from our early 2020 analysis that Covid was going to be a problem for a long time, so to some extent I’d mentally prepared. But unlike previous outbreaks, where we’d work intensively for a few weeks, this would be months, then years, coupled with daily media queries and growing online abuse.

In a way, the increasing absurdity of the social media attacks made them easier to ignore – whether the accusations of treason in all caps, or bizarre threats about 'Nuremberg 2.0'.

Everyone had a rough time during the pandemic – whether personally or professionally – and it was hard to see friends and family suffering, knowing the end was still so far away.

There were times where I ran close to the wire on burnout, feeling a sudden deterioration in my ability to focus and function. Each time I dialled things back as much as I could, trying to protect my energy for our most important work.

As well as woodland walks, I had a weekly poker game with friends on Zoom, and lots of cocktails and cooking with my wife. Then, when my son was born in late 2021, I finally took some proper leave.

Go-to meal after a long day of work? Thai green curry.

I have always found being close to bodies of water comforting and healing. Throughout the most intense phases of the pandemic, it was no surprise that being close to the Thames was so therapeutic – whether when taking my morning walks, commuting into office, or sitting along the river bank to observe the ships, sunsets and silence of lockdowns.

The pandemic response was intense and relentless. At its peak we were easily working 18-hour days, with an incessant stream of emails, briefings, Teams and Zoom calls, and detailed outbreak management activities.

I committed to doing as much media, community and stakeholder briefings as I could – ensuring Londoners and those who served them had the best and most up to date information they needed.

Despite occasionally being at the receiving end of people’s frustrations, fears and critiques, I feel that the public and our partners saw we were doing our best under very difficult, uncertain and complex circumstances.

The long hours definitely had their impacts – it often meant time away from family and friends, more disrupted sleep, more unhealthy behaviours, and prolonged fatigue. Finding time to keep and restore work-life balance was a constant concern for me.

While I never thought about stepping back from the work, I did change my working patterns to force myself to completely disconnect from the pandemic response at least one day per week and encouraged all my team to do the same. Looking back this decision was one of the best things we did for our personal resilience.

Favourite TV programme of the pandemic? RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Memories of days during the pandemic blur into one. It was never in question that we would simply work and work, and keep working, morning, noon and night, to find safe vaccines and treatments that might be effective against Covid. It never felt like a sacrifice in any way.

Regulators like me are rule-makers and rule-followers and so when the government advice was to go for a half-hour walk every day, that is exactly what I did. The Common in Saffron Walden near my lockdown base was a lovely, tranquil place and where I would go to decompress.

In one corner of the Common is the ancient maze or labyrinth, cut into the turf, which dates from medieval times. It came to symbolise for me the kind of puzzling dilemma and the uncertainty posed by the pandemic.

When little children see the maze, they don’t stand and puzzle. They just run to it, run along the path, never stopping until they solve it and reach the centre. They don’t ever pause or give up, and neither did we. They don’t cut any corners, and neither did we.

I’m often asked, ‘was it a hard decision approving the first vaccine?’ In truth, no, not at all – because of the brilliant science, the clear data showing its efficacy and safety, and the dedication of our review teams and experts.

I was also confident because of the plan we had in place to get the public reporting to us after their jab, so we could see how safe it was in real life. That close to half a million have done so is simply incredible. I cannot tell you how grateful I am, and millions more around the world have reason to give thanks too.

Proudest moment? Giving the green light for the first Covid vaccine.

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