Sir Patrick’s new honour represents an upgrade on the knighthood he received three years ago
Speaking after collecting an honour at Buckingham Palace for his work during the pandemic, he also recalled tough days as the virus took hold in 2020.
The early days of the pandemic were the “darkest”, he said, as lots of people became ill quickly amid “huge uncertainty” about the virus.
“Obviously people in the government fell ill and the prime minister was very ill and those were very difficult days. It was mostly about the uncertainty. We did not know much about the virus. We did not know much about exactly how it spread. We did not know there were going to be vaccines and treatments.”
Asked about the Partygate scandal, he said: “It was really important at all stages that everyone stuck to the rules. It works when people stuck to them. It is disappointing that that wasn’t the case.”
As the Duke of Cambridge presented Sir Patrick with an upgraded award, he joked that this was “second time lucky” as Sir Patrick was originally knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours list.
It makes him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, an award that recognises the work of senior military officials and civil servants.
Not necessarily a well-deserved award:
COVID-19 pandemic
In March 2020, as the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Vallance appeared alongside prime minister Boris Johnson and the Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty, in televised briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic. For a time, he advocated a herd immunity approach.In September, it emerged that Vallance owns a deferred bonus of 43,111 shares worth £600,000 in GlaxoSmithKline, a company which is working on developing a COVID vaccine. This led to claims of a potential conflict of interest, as Vallance could be seen to have a financial interest in pushing for a vaccine-based response to the pandemic whether or not this is objectively the best approach. Then Health Secretary Matt Hancock denied that this was the case, with a government spokesperson stating that, “Upon his appointment, appropriate steps were taken to manage the Government Chief Scientific Adviser’s interests in line with advice provided at the time. The GCSA has no input into contractual and commercial decisions on vaccine procurement which are taken by Ministers following a robust cross-Government approvals regime”.
After a televised briefing alongside Johnson and Whitty on 31 October, where a second “lockdown” was introduced for England, Vallance was criticised for showing two slides – projecting hospital admissions and deaths – which were later reissued with worst-case figures revised downward.Five days later, a statement from the Office for Statistics Regulation called for greater transparency in published data relating to the pandemic, including publication of data sources and modelling assumptions; the statement did not refer to any specific presentation but was linked by reporters to the 31 October briefing.