Vaccine

Saturday was what is known in France as the Chassé-croisé, the busiest day of the year on the roads, when those who took their holidays in July return home and those who chose August depart. By lunchtime there were 625 miles of traffic jams on the roads. The thoroughfares of many cities were also blocked, but for another reason. For the third consecutive Saturday, thousands of people marched to protest against the introduction of the government's Covid passport. Almost a quarter of a million people took to the streets in 180 demonstrations, according to the government. These numbers are disputed by the organisers, who claim they are wildly conservative. But whatever the exact figure, it was a phenomenal number of demonstrators for the final weekend of July.

Israel has today become the first country in the world to offer a third Covid-19 booster vaccine on a large scale. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that Israel will vaccinate all people over the age of 60 again, with the new Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and his wife, the first people to receive their third shot on Friday morning. Legitimate concerns led to the decision: the number of new Covid cases in Israel has been rapidly increasing, including among the vaccinated – although to a much lesser degree compared with those who have not been vaccinated. There were 2,143 confirmed cases on Thursday, with 286 hospitalisations.

Will it be necessary to produce a passe sanitaire (vaccination passport) to be allowed to vote in France? With 221 days until the first round of the next presidential election, the mere rumour of such a sinister measure is provoking near hysteria. ‘Fake news’ shrieked the media aligned with president Emmanuel Macron (frankly, most of it) tonight. Perhaps. It’s true that the government’s vaccination passport law currently being rushed through the National Assembly does not specifically mandate proof of vaccination to vote. More than 175 demonstrations against the passe sanitaire are scheduled this weekend But neither does it specifically exclude it.

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.

There is a myth in football that you are always most susceptible to letting in a goal after you have just scored one. It’s probably not true but the idea is attractive. At the peak of our achievement we are vulnerable to complacency. Is a similar thing happening with the vaccine programme? The current prevailing narrative is that the declining rates of vaccination are the fault of the under 30s. Government scientists accept that the country is 'close to maximum take-up', with many young people still hesitant about vaccination, the Times reported this week. But is that right? There is probably some truth to the less-than-urgent demand amongst this lower-risk group. But focusing on uptake among young people alone obscures a more obvious issue.

Israel has been the world’s whole-country experiment to establish how, and how fast, Covid vaccination can return life to normal (as much as life is ever normal in a country where there is constant tension over the rights and future of Palestinians). I am in Jerusalem, trying to understand the implications for stability in Israel and peace in the Middle East of a new government where prime minister Naftali Bennett is opposed to any kind of Palestinian state, and the alternate PM Yair Lapid passionately believes a two-state solution is the only answer.

Sipping an iced coffee in a Tel Aviv café this week, it felt like it was 2018 again. Nobody wears a face mask, tables are close together and there’s no hand gel in sight. Very few people one meets even talk about Covid-19. Though a tiny increase in the occurrence of the Indian variant has been noted in recent days, Israel is rightly proud of its vaccination and mass immunity success. It is therefore surprising that Israel’s offer to advance over one million Pfizer vaccines to the Palestinians has been rejected by the Palestinian Authority only hours after they initially accepted the deal. Many countries are still grappling with the ethical dilemma of when to offer their own supply of vaccines abroad to help others; few are expecting such offers to be rejected.

What will Boris Johnson announce on Monday? The Prime Minister is due to update the nation on whether the final stage of the roadmap out of lockdown can proceed on 21 June as planned. However, with cases on the rise and the Indian variant spreading, various government advisers have spent the past few weeks taking to the airwaves to warn of calamity ahead should Johnson lift all restrictions. There is also a push from some in the Cabinet to either delay the roadmap or opt for a more limited easing. In truth, no final decision will be made until Sunday. The Prime Minister is currently busy in Cornwall attempting to woo world leaders (and avoid a diplomatic row with the US over the Northern Ireland protocol).

There are still six days to go before the Prime Minister has to decide whether or not to go ahead with the full reopening of the economy and society on 21 June. But there seems little doubt in which way the government is travelling.  It is reported this morning that, following a pessimistic presentation by Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance the likelihood is that the reopening will be delayed by a fortnight, the lifting of some measures perhaps a little longer than that. Is this yet another shifting of the goalposts? It is true that there has been an increase in cases over the past couple of weeks – not so far accompanied by a rise in hospitalisations and deaths.

How well does prior exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus protect you against reinfection? It has been a hotly-debated subject since the first trickle of reported cases of reinfection with the virus began to be reported last spring. Now, a study involving 16,000 students from South Carolina has attempted to quantify the protective effect of natural infection. The students involved in the study, which is published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, were each swabbed for a PCR test last autumn, as a condition of being allowed to return to campus. They were swabbed again this spring in similar circumstances.  Out of 16,101 students, 2,021 were found to be infected in the autumn. Of these, 44 – or 2.