Covid

At the end of last year, Australia was lauded for its success in containing Covid-19. The country’s borders had been quickly closed; interstate travel restricted and resources diverted to tracking down cases. In the deluge of praise that followed, outlets like the Washington Post ran gushing features on the country’s ‘pandemic success story’ ‘putting faith in science’; America’s top doctor Anthony Fauci hailed it as the ‘epitome of success.’ But eight months on and a different picture emerges. Covid has had an unfortunate habit of finding the weaknesses in a country or health system and in Australia the precious time gained last year was largely squandered on a widely-criticised vaccine roll out.

Every now and again, Gordon Brown makes a decent point – as he does today, pointing out that 80 per cent of the jabs have gone to the 20 richest countries. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organisation chief, warned in January that 'even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the world’s haves and have-nots.' MPs rebel over cutting aid. But send vaccines to overseas pensioners, when they could be heading for the arms of British schoolchildren? Here, they fall silent. Ethically, it’s a far harder question. When Covid vaccines were still a hypothetical, the moral dilemma was clear. Once a country has vaccinated its at-risk groups (ie, the over-50s) it would have massively downgraded the potency of Covid-19.

It wouldn’t be credible to say that this year’s A-Levels grades are comparable with 2019's: almost 45 per cent of entries got an A or A* compared to 25 per cent two years ago. But, as I say in the magazine this week, the problem is that you can’t simply snap back to normal next year. Many of those who got their grades this year won’t go to university until next year. This — and the fact that the education of those in the year below has been disrupted too — means it wouldn’t be fair for exams to return to normal next year. That would leave the class of 2022 competing for university places against those who have benefitted from 2021’s more generous system.

It is already known that there will be a campaign of booster shots in the UK this autumn to boost immunity among the over-50s. But it now looks like the government is planning one for autumn 2022 as well. Steven Swinford reports in the Times today that the UK has ordered 35 million doses from Pfizer for next year. The number of doses ordered suggests that the government wants to have the option in 2022 of giving a booster shot to everyone in clinical groups 1-9: the over-50s. Swinford reports that the government was prompted to act, in part, by the fact that the EU has already placed an order for 900 million Pfizer shots over the next two years. It seems likely that richer countries will go down the booster shot route in the coming months.

In the early days of the pandemic, Australia was the envy of the world. The country was lauded as a model of how to handle the virus. Australian states recorded few cases; and when there were outbreaks, authorities brought them under control quickly. All that has changed. Now, well into the second half of 2021, Australia is losing its grip on the virus. While other major cities such as New York, London, and Paris, are opening up, Sydney is under lockdown. Even outside the nation’s major cities, travel restrictions are severely limiting movement for Australians within the country. Australia’s politicians have sought to blame the Delta variant of coronavirus. But in truth, the new strain is only part of the story.

Many experts and modellers thought that the 19 July reopening would be a disaster. So far, that has not been the case. Daily case numbers actually started falling within days after 19 July, although that was far too soon to have been caused by anything to do with ‘freedom day’. The question now is how the pandemic will play out for the rest of this year and the next? In trying to understand this, we need to understand some important things about the biology of coronaviruses and their interaction with their hosts: us. Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid, is not going away. Like other coronaviruses, it will likely infect us all repeatedly throughout the rest of our lives, probably about once every five years.

The ‘party elite’ narrative has resurfaced this morning, after the Daily Mail splashed its findings that COP26 president Alok Sharma has travelled to a grand total of 30 countries over the past seven months, skipping quarantine upon return. Sharma is under pressure on two counts: first, that as the cabinet minister responsible for the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Scotland this November, his example of plane-hopping between nations doesn’t quite gel with the government’s message of reducing carbon emissions. But it’s the Covid element that really sticks. Thanks to loopholes in the legislation, ministers are exempt from quarantine measures when they arrive back in the UK.

The latest French export to the United States is a requirement that people show proof of vaccination to visit indoor bars, concert venues, restaurants and gyms. But will it work? On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will be the first American metropolis to import the French health pass. Marketed like an upscale perk, the 'Key to NYC Pass' program will begin on 16 August and become mandatory on 13 September. De Blasio is doing his best to sell the pass as a carrot, rather than the stick it really is. But his rhetoric is still ominous. He said: 'It is so important to make clear that if you are vaccinated, you get to benefit in all sorts of ways. You get to live a better life. Besides your health in general, you get to participate in many, many things.

Will Britain become the first country in the world to have a large section of its population immunised against Covid-19 three times over — and will that be a worthwhile achievement? The government is reportedly planning to give out booster shots — eventually to everyone over the age of 50 — starting as early as 6 September. This appears to be following the advice issued by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on 30 June. If the government tells us we all need an extra shot after so short an interval, might it undermine confidence in the vaccines?

Was there ever a national crisis which was so easy to solve? There are reports of supermarket shelves emptying, petrol stations running out of fuel and panic-buying. This in not unprecedented. Yet on this occasion the government doesn’t have to deal with a bolshie trade union, enter difficult negotiations with an EU which is determined to punish us for Brexit or even handle the early, unknown stages of a pandemic. All the Prime Minister has to do is to announce that the changes to the Test and Trace system already earmarked for 16 August – when fully-vaccinated people will no longer be forced to self-isolate for ten days but could be advised to get tested instead – be enacted immediately. The panic would immediately be over.

Is making young people show vaccine passports to get into nightclubs a good idea? Boris Johnson's motivation in doing so appears to be that this is a good way to entice under 30s to get their jabs. In reality, the policy is illiberal, shows no gratitude for the sacrifices young people have already made during this pandemic, and should go against all of our British sensibilities. There's also a better alternative: one demonstrated in New York.  I’ve been based in the United States for the past six months and Boris could learn a thing or two from the freedom-loving Yankees. Here, proof of vaccination is not required for entry into nightclubs, as I experienced first hand last Saturday night.