12/26/2023 0 Comments Another lockdown uk 2021![]() ![]() Rapid vaccine rollout was a rare exception to this catalogue of failure, but even on that front we seem to be squandering our advantage. You’d expect it to be one or the other, yet somehow we have managed to combine all four negatives under one roof. The result is a confusion in policy which has yielded the worst of all possible worlds – one of the highest per capita hospitalisation and death rates among developed nations, one of the biggest economic contractions, one of the slowest recoveries, and some of the most costly mitigation measures. There is no-one keener than Boris Johnson to get back to normal, but he is repeatedly forced into retreat. Sorry to say, but from the very start of this pandemic, the Government has been constantly on the back foot, with a strategy that appears to be neither one thing nor the other. Any enforced vaccination programme among those in their teens would therefore be solely for the benefit of older cohorts. There is as yet no published plan for booster jabs, and no decision on whether to vaccinate teenagers, an ethically questionable strategy in any case since some experts consider the risk to teenagers of vaccination to be somewhat higher than the disease itself. The Chancellor looks on with a growing sense of despair.īut as to what ministers are going to otherwise do if infections again threaten to overwhelm the NHS, answer comes there none. ![]() Many businesses in the hospitality sector won’t survive the reimposition of restrictions, nevermind the costs of it to the public purse. ![]() With pupils already back in the classroom north of the border, experience in Scotland gives a foretaste of what may be to come in England and Wales when schools return next week.ĭowning Street is again briefing that another nationwide lockdown is unconscionable and it is indeed hard to believe that the public would tolerate a second lost Christmas, or even a temporary fire break before then. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon again hints at the need for some form of renewed lockdown in Scotland after a week that saw the highest number of daily infections in the pandemic so far. Shortages in the supply of vials for routine blood tests add to the sense of an NHS which is once more on the brink. In other words, the destruction of another outbreak is beginning to look more likely than not.Ĭombine this with a bad flu season, which is equally possible after the hiatus in infections caused by the social distancing of the past year and a half, and all the ingredients are there for a renewed public health crisis. On the ground experience in Israel, which has been at the forefront of vaccine rollout, and a UK study headed by Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, have concluded that vaccine potency against infection is short lived. Vaccines, it seems, may not be the salvation once assumed. It is admittedly still too early to be certain one way or the other, but worryingly we now have clear evidence that the effectiveness of vaccines wears off markedly after six months. Obviously we must all hope for the best, but hope is not a strategy ministers also need to prepare for the worst, and that means a fully thought through plan of action for avoiding the default option of renewed lockdown this winter – with all its attendant damage to education, the economy, the public finances, and general wellbeing. Not to put too fine a point on it, the war on Covid is once again looking like an on-the-hoof, chaotic mess. For as things stand, there is very little sign of planning for what happens if the vaccines aren’t enough. Fingers crossed, the current surge in Covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths won’t be nearly as bad as previous waves. ![]()
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