With the festive season fast approaching and Covid-19 very much here to stay, how can you and your family keep safe and well during the holiday season? How can you meet with relatives or close friends whilst minimising the risks and staying within the law? And how do you decipher the facts from false and inaccurate reporting on social media?
Official guidance can be difficult to follow, can change rapidly, and understandably it's hard for the public to know which sources of information to trust.
With lockdown restriction eased for five days over the Christmas period and the change in weather forcing us inside, we face a new challenge in the Coronavirus pandemic. Having previously brought the infection rate down in the UK, the challenge now is on all of us to keep the rate down over the festive season.
Your Christmas Covid-19 concerns addressed and answered
NMP Live is delighted to have arranged for TV presenter Kate Garraway to team up with the Royal Society of Medicine and present an in-depth webinar which asks some of the most pressing questions from the public to top medical experts.
The aim of this campaign is to provide the public with information on how they can stay safe over the festive period, and plan for safer family gatherings.
During the 30-minute session, Kate and the experts will touch upon subjects about staying safe for travel, whether you should wear a mask indoors with your family, and is it safe to hug? They also look at the vaccines, the risks and if there are any side effects.
The medical experts
Joining Kate Garraway, socially distanced at the RSM's London studio, she talks to Dr Chris van Tulleken (skip to 00:51), infectious disease doctor at the University College London Hospital as he navigates us through how the virus is transmitted and how it can be prevented; Professor Robin Shattock (skip to 13:30), head of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London where he talks about the science behind the vaccines, its development and safety; Dr Sarah Filson (skip to 21:47), infectious diseases and microbiology specialist registrar doctor at Northwick Park Hospital who gives us a perspective of those working in the frontline as well as learnings from other cultures, and Dr Clare Gerada (skip to 26:23), medical director of the Practitioner Health Programme as she gives advice on how to care and treat for someone who may be showing symptoms of Covid.
Together they explain the science and evidence behind the Covid "Christmas bubble" guidelines and offer some practical tips to help you and your family keep safe and well during the holiday season.
And with vaccines now being rolled-out nationwide, the RSM's medical experts look at the science behind the jabs, how they have been developed and how they will be made available to the wider public in the New Year.
About Kate Garraway
Kate Garraway is a highly respected TV and radio presenter, currently on-air co-presenting ITV's Good Morning Britain. She also has her own midmorning radio show on Global's Smooth FM from 10 am-1 pm, and was previously one of the faces of the National Lottery, presenting live on Saturday nights on BBC1.
In March 2020, her husband Derek Draper, a former political aide to then Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, contracted the Covid-19 virus and was admitted to an intensive care unit. He was subsequently placed in an induced coma where he remains hospitalised in a serious condition.
The Royal Society of Medicine
The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is one of the UK's major providers of postgraduate medical education and learning to the medical profession. Independent and apolitical, the RSM promotes an exchange of information and ideas on the science, practice and organisation of medicine.
Since lockdown, the RSM has now run 80 webinars and one international conference on Covid-19, convening dozens of the UK’s top experts across all aspects of healthcare and pandemic management. These have not only informed thousands of people directly but key information from these has been picked up and disseminated by over 1650 media articles.
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