TODAY, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Oxford Vaccine Group director Andrew Pollard.

Warnings of blood clots appearing shortly after people receive their dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine have been sweeping Europe for weeks now, and indeed they are not to be taken lightly, but we absolutely must look at these cases in context.

For a start, as far as we can currently tell, the chances of getting one of these blood clots are vanishingly small.

Secondly, even getting a clot will not necessarily be fatal.

Thirdly, the chances of dying from coronavirus if one chooses not to get a jab are far higher.

In life, there are no guarantees of safety, we can only ever choose what is safer, and at the moment all the evidence says that, as long as the coronavirus is around, having the Oxford jab is thousands of times safer than not having a jab.

None of this is to say, of course, that we should ignore the side effects of a medical treatment: these are hugely important too, and warrant further investigation, but as Dr Pollard says, we must continue to have faith in the system.