“The people affected by this feel that they do not have a life; it feels like a life sentence.“
Daisy Cooper MP has led a debate on the procurement of Evusheld – a preventative Covid antibody drug.
Many people across the country have been campaigning for the government to buy in stocks of this drug. For immuno-compromised or immune-suppressed people, who live with conditions such as blood cancer, kidney transplants, and MS, their systems don’t mount a response to vaccines, which has resulted in prolonged shielding since the start of the pandemic.
The 30-minute debate took place on Wednesday 12 October, and was well attended by other MPs.
In the debate, Daisy said: “There is nowhere that is safe for these people: not shops, not schools, not supermarkets, not buses, not even the very GP surgeries and hospitals that they need to visit to manage the conditions that make them vulnerable. They are at extreme risk of hospitalisation and death, and they have been left with no choice but to lock themselves away from family and friends for two and a half years. Many now face a third winter of shielding.
“Two years ago, Members stood in this room and begged Health Ministers to change their minds on care home restrictions, which were supposed to protect people but were so tight that some people started dying of neglect. We are at risk of that happening again.
“The Government changed course after that debate and can do so again today. The people affected by this feel that they do not have a life; it feels like a life sentence. Ministers have it in their gift to give those people their life back, and on behalf of the half a million, I urge the Minister—I beg him—to do it today.”
After the debate, the Government agreed to request NICE to review Evusheld faster; review new evidence from the Francis Crick institute and The Lancet medical journal, and organise a briefing for all MPs the following week.