Covid-19

The Prime Minister only has himself to blame for the public outcry over 70-year-olds being vaccinated when there are still many over 80-year-olds waiting even to be invited to be vaccinated. What I mean by this is that there was a perfectly good argument for vaccinating 70-to-80 year olds before the more elderly, or at the same time. But Boris Johnson eliminated all debate about that when he ordered the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to organise the vaccination programme so that deaths from or with Covid-19 should be cut as rapidly as possible.

As ministers voice their hope that the country can start to lift restrictions from early March, questions are being asked as to when restrictions can go altogether and normal life resume. Members of the Tory Covid Recovery Group have argued that most restrictions should go as soon as the vulnerable are protected. While officials remain tight-lipped on the issue, Matt Hancock did offer an insight in today's press conference as to the key factors the government will consider when making that decision. Announcing that over four million people have now been vaccinated in the UK, the Health Secretary urged the public not to blow it as the route out was clear. In the Q&A, he pointed to the factors that will decide when restrictions can go.

Boris Johnson had a few positive things to offer this evening's coronavirus briefing. Speaking alongside chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, the Prime Minister announced that 3.3 million people had received their vaccines, including nearly 45 per cent of the over-80s. Whitty, meanwhile, had the sort-of good news that the government thinks the peak of infections has now passed in London, the South East and East of England. The considerably less cheery flip side of that, of course, is that we have yet to reach the peak of hospitalisations and deaths in these regions, let alone the rest of the country.

Labour MP Zarah Sultana has caused a bit of a stir by proposing that prisoners be allowed to skip the queue for the Covid-19 vaccine. She’s even been Steerpiked, a rite of passage for any aspiring 'Loony Left' Labour MP. If anything, her compassion for lags marks a welcome development in someone who six years ago was pledging to celebrate the deaths of Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu.  Sultana asked vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi at the science and technology select committee yesterday whether the government had considered ‘prioritising vaccinating detainees as well as those who work in prisons’.  Despite the backlash to Sultana's suggestion, the problem is that there’s evidence to back up her argument.

Boris Johnson has previously enjoyed Liaison Committee hearings rather too much, trying to get through the long session with select committee chairs using humour and optimism. Both were in rather short supply on Wednesday, as you might expect given the UK's current predicament in the pandemic. The Prime Minister covered a lot of ground, and not just when it came to coronavirus. On the pandemic, he warned that the 'risk is very substantial' that hospital intensive care capacity is 'overtopped'. He also said that the government did not know whether the vaccines stop transmission of the virus as well as reduce the severity for each person, or indeed whether the South African and Brazilian variants of the virus were vaccine resistant.

At tonight's Covid press conference, the Home Secretary Priti Patel sought to defend the coronavirus restrictions against suggestions that the law was confusing and hard to follow. She said: 'The rules are actually very simple and clear. We are meant to stay at home and only leave home for a very, very limited number of reasons'. What were those reasons? A list followed, including: 'outdoor recreation but in a very, very restricted and limited way, staying local, I’ve said that several times over the last week.' Except, outdoor recreation was specifically deleted as a deemed reasonable excuse to leave home by the regulatory amendments bringing into effect the national lockdown. Presumably the Home Secretary meant outdoor exercise (an exception retained in the regulations).

Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore had a bad experience with the Derbyshire police last week. The two women met for a socially distanced walk roughly a five-mile drive away from their home. This resulted in the pair being ‘surrounded’ by police officers, who fined them £200 for leaving their local area and drinking takeaway coffee, which the officers classified as a ‘picnic’. Since the story broke last week, the police force has backed down significantly and are reviewing their policies as a result of the incident. Allen and Moore were not, it seems, breaking any laws (although No. 10 and other departments remain unsure about how this fits into government guidance). Claims that coffee amounted to a picnic made the debate around Scotch eggs look credible.