Vaccine

If you think public health authorities in England are overbearing, spare a thought for the Czechs. Parents who fail to have children vaccinated face being fined or having their offspring excluded from nurseries. Now, in a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights, has backed that policy. But even critics aghast at the thought of compulsory vaccinations should welcome the court's verdict. Why? Because human rights judges should not be butting in here. The Czech law bends over backwards to accommodate welfare concerns: vaccinations are free; there are exceptions for good medical reasons; and any vaccine-generated injury is automatically compensated. Yet it was still an obvious target for human rights challenge on individualist grounds.

The ethical case against domestic use of ‘vaccine passports’ was made with some passion in Britain before Boris Johnson’s change of heart. Matt Hancock repeatedly assured people that Britain is 'not a papers-carrying country'. Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi said vaccine passports would be 'discriminatory'. Michael Gove promised that there were 'no plans' to introduce them. In a Westminster Hall debate, MPs from all parties lined up to say that out of principle, the minority who chose not to take the vaccine should suffer no penalty. We have not been told the reason for the u-turn. In theory, the government is taking soundings.

On New Year’s Eve, Emmanuel Macron promised France an economic revival by the Spring. Cancel that. Instead, as the intensive care units are saturated by a third wave of Covid, we have a new lockdown light and a new message from the president: ‘Don’t panic.’ More than a year after Macron the general took personal command of the war on the new coronavirus, the vaccination program has still to get into high gear, the doctors are threatening to triage patients, abandoning those with little hope, yet there was no hint of contrition from the president. Instead, he announced that we are to be subjected to yet another baffling set of rules which together comprise a sort of ‘confinement,’ although Macron never used the word.

The last ten weeks have been a depressing time for those few believers in the EU's lofty ideals. The saga of the vaccine procurement and roll out would be funny if it was not so tragic, beginning with Ursula von der Leyen trying to erect a hard border in Ireland in January and now culminating in Italy impounding meningitis jabs to America. You would have hoped such incompetence would have made some in Brussels reflect on their hubris. Not a bit of it, judging by the briefing of an anonymous EU official last weekend.

On the day that people are finally allowed to gather in groups of six outside, tennis games get underway and wild swimmers take to Instagram en masse, Boris Johnson attempted to land a message of caution with the nation. Speaking at today's press conference, the Prime Minister spoke of the need to 'proceed with caution' as the country takes a 'small step to freedom today'.  The nerves in government point to a problem that will only grow as the vaccination programme continues at pace The PM pointed to Covid cases rising across the Channel as a cause for concern that shows the need to 'continue flat out to build the immunity of our population (and) build our defences against that wave when it comes'.

In 1991, at the height of the first Gulf War, the EU demonstrated to the world its divisions and helplessness, as Belgium infamously blocked the export of munitions to the UK, then at war in the Gulf. They quickly came to regret it. The Belgian Foreign Minister subsequently remarked tellingly: ‘Europe is an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm’. It seems these days that little has changed, save that even the EU’s claim to be an ‘economic giant’ is eroding with the loss of the world’s fifth largest economy, a dwindling share of world trade and a catatonic growth rate, even before the pandemic. Worse still, much of its relative economic decline is self-inflicted.

With just under 500,000 patients admitted to hospitals in Britain since the start of the pandemic, we need to talk about 'long Covid'. Why? Because while the vaccine rollout is undoubtedly saving many lives, there is going to be a forbidding secondary impact from this virus on the nation’s health, the scale of which is only just becoming apparent.  What does 'long Covid' conjure in your mind? For many, it has become synonymous with fatigue and brain fog, symptoms which are fairly common. But what is less well known is that the impact of Covid-19 on patients can extend far beyond these symptoms alone.