is about to take place. i mjonathan i m jonathan van tam, deputy chief medical officer of the department of health and social care and joined as usual byjune raine to my left, chief executive of the nhra and on my right by professor wei shen lim, chair of the covid 19 vaccine subcommittee of the jvc i june raine, chief executive of the mhra. i will open with a fury marks and then a pass over to my colleagues. we have known from the outset of this pandemic that variants have always been inevitable and we have seen many, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, which she will be familiar, and there are others. when a variant appears, it always causes initial concern because at that point we do