Vaccination

At the beginning of the Covid crisis, some expressed the hope that a pandemic might at least bring a divided country back together. Instead, public discourse descended to new levels of bitterness as a fresh schism replaced that caused by Brexit. On one side were those who thought tens of thousands would die because government action was too slow and half-hearted, and on the other, those who thought lockdown to be an over-reaction that inflicted grave damage on our economy and society. Both sides ought now to be able to agree that this week marks a significant turning point in the pandemic. The first shot of an approved Covid vaccine to be administered in a public programme anywhere in the world was given to Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old woman in a Coventry hospital.

Just a few months ago it was not certain that we would find a vaccine for Covid-19. Now, we have three, with potentially more on the way — and the rollout of the Pfizer jab due to begin next week. It’s an extraordinary achievement for the research community, our best hope of restoring normal life and a bloody relief after a year of disappointments. But the government, at least, should beware of geeks bearing gifts. To get us to herd immunity, they have to persuade somewhere between 60 per cent to 90 per cent of us to get vaccinated. You can see Boris Johnson’s problem. If he makes vaccination completely voluntary, we may never hit the target we need for herd immunity. It’s not just anti-vaxxers.

The NHS plans to vaccinate everyone who wants a jab by early April, according to leaked documents seen by the Health Service Journal. This marks a shift in strategy from the government’s previous plan to only vaccinate the vulnerable. If successful, it would mean that all social distancing measures could be ended in April. The documents operate on a 75 per cent take-up rate for the vaccine among the general population, which seems a touch high given polling on the subject. It assumes that the NHS would be vaccinating 4.5 million people per week and for both the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines people would need to take two doses, 28 days apart.

After a difficult nine months, we are naturally all sick of lockdowns and other Covid restrictions. Everyone misses parts of their pre-coronavirus lives, from seeing friends and family, to pubs and restaurants, to the theatre and concerts and, yes, even our workplaces. It was therefore no surprise that this week’s news of a vaccine breakthrough was widely applauded. It is human nature, after all, to cling on to things that give us hope. Hope that was encouraged by leading scientists such as Sir John Bell. After the Pfizer news broke, the Oxford professor was asked on BBC radio whether we would be returning to normal by spring. His response? ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ This was a When Harry Met Sally moment that proved to be music to the ears of millions of Britons.

Woeful Wales Sir: Allison Pearson succinctly points out the absurdity of the so-called Welsh government and its assembly, now trying to masquerade as a parliament (‘Wales of grief’, 31 October). For those of us living in Wales it is difficult to talk of the Welsh Assembly without using the F-word: failure. For the past 20 years it has failed the Welsh people at every conceivable level, while building a conceit that it is a true government. The only irony of the current Covid-19 debacle is that for once it has been forced to actually do something instead of talking endlessly around a subject before doing nothing. I have described its failure as the Sadim effect.

You have to admit it, Operation Warp Speed is a good moniker. It’s the name for the American interagency programme, initiated by the Trump administration, to produce 300 million doses of a safe vaccine for Covid-19 by January. Who couldn’t get behind this all-hands national effort to defeat the virus and end the pandemic, excitingly named after the faster-than-light space travel in Star Trek? While we wait for clinical trials led by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca in the UK, America warps ahead. Warp speed allows the Starship Enterprise to put aside the laws of physics. Vaccine development also has its own laws, or rather guides, that describe the way things usually happen.