Piers Morgan has taken to social media to encourage people to get the coronavirus vaccination, using a tragic case to demonstrate his point.
The 56-year-old TV personality took to Twitter to share the story of a father who appeared to refuse to have the vaccination, who has now reportedly died.
Mr Morgan’s post captures four tweets sent by user @gridirondawg, likely from the U.S. and known only as Brent H, where he shares his views on the vaccination rollout. His Twitter description/bio says, ‘MSU sports, Dallas Cowboys, fishing#’.
Piers Morgan, 56, took to Twitter to share the ‘tragedy’ of someone not getting their jab
In one tweet, he writes: ‘I’ve never taken a flu shot and I’ll never take a COVID shot!’
In another, he said: ‘Zinc and vitamin D regiment > Moderna and Phizer.’
In response to another user, he wrote: ‘I haven’t taken it and haven’t had any COVID issues.’
A glance at his profile shows the most recent update on June 24, which appears to have been posted by his daughter.
The tweet reads: ‘This is Brent’s daughter… dad died of COVID. He had no underlying conditions and was in his early 50s.
‘I know he’s been saying otherwise, but PLEASE save your families this heartache. Go get your shot.’
She then shares a link to an online platform where people can find their nearest vaccination centre.
Mr Morgan captioned the image with: ‘The tragedy of refusing to take covid & vaccines seriously. Get the jab.’
The screenshots were shared on Twitter via Mr Morgan’s account
Mr Morgan, who has now received both coronavirus jabs, has been outspoken about encouraging people to get their vaccinations.
He has also called for the Government not to extend lockdown beyond ‘Freedom Day’ on July 19 for those who have had their jab, insisting that those who have been vaccinated should get their freedom back.
Yesterday, statistics showed that Britain’s daily Covid cases had jumped by nearly 80 per cent in one week.
But the number of hospitalisations remains below 250 a day, fuelling hope the outbreak is slowing.
A further 18,270 people tested positive on Saturday marking a 77 per cent rise on the 10,321 cases recorded the previous weekend. It also marked the highest daily rise since February 5.
But, in a sign that the vaccine is working to keep the number of hospitalisations down, just 227 people were admitted on Saturday – bringing the total number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals to 1,505.
The growing evidence of the vaccine effect has led top scientists and ministers to be confident that England’s Freedom Day will go ahead on July 19 as planned.
Restrictions in Scotland are due to be reviewed on that date, too.
But Downing Street is refusing to bow to backbench Tory pressure to bring the final unlocking forward to July 5, citing the importance of getting as many second vaccine doses into arms as possible.
In another promising sign for England’s July 19 Freedom Day to go ahead, earlier this week SAGE estimated the reproduction ‘R’ rate – which measures how quickly the virus is spreading – is still between 1.2 to 1.4 in England.
It has not moved in three weeks, which adds to growing evidence the country’s outbreak is slowing.
It comes as six cases of a variant first discovered in Peru – the Lambda variant – have been identified in the UK, although health officials are not worried at this stage due to the low number of cases here and around the world.
Figures from Public Health England show that 111,157 cases of the Delta variant have now been identified in the UK, up by 46 per cent on the previous week.
This means that approximately 95 per cent of confirmed cases of coronavirus across the UK are the Delta variant, which is more transmissible and may carry a higher risk of hospitalisation than the previously dominant Kent strain.
Those who have had two vaccinations are being warned to remain cautious.
Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation, told Sky News: ‘The safety of putting people together who have been vaccinated is greater than people who are unvaccinated, but if there’s a lot of virus circulating there will still be infections taking place.’
He also said there was ‘a high probability’ that some booster jabs would be needed in autumn.
‘In order to avoid the risk of a winter surge, we may well need to use booster doses, particularly I think in the first instance for the people who had the vaccine (the) longest time ago and who are at highest risk of getting seriously ill when they get infected.
‘So I don’t think this is a certainty yet, but I think there’s a high probability that at least some boosting will need to go on this winter.’