A lot of politics is about peoples expectations. And so the Government, having signalled a slow enough reopening of the economy and society for months, has presented what was agreed this week as a speeding-up. In reality, the plan is still gradual enough for now with a lot of the riskier reopenings put off until June. But, conditioned by lockdown, we welcome the small freedoms and the hints that by July we might be sitting in pubs, or even have the option of a foreign trip.
Who knows? As we have seen over the past year, predicting what happens next is pointless The vaccine numbers are rising but less than 30 per cent of the over-16 population have had one jab. The best shot excuse the pun of reopening working is to get the vaccines out fast. And the latest advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) does pose some more challenges here, over and above the risk of late supplies with which we are by now wearingly familiar.
There are now signs that the vaccination programme is really speeding up and moving to over 200,000 a week. Whether it can get to the level of 420,000-430,000 a week which will be needed in June to meet the Government targets remains to be seen. But the big vaccine centres are now swinging into action and all 38 should be up and running in May.
This is good. So is the building evidence of just how well the vaccines work, tempered of course by the unpredictable impact of new variants. But there are challenges, too.
Here we come back to expectations. News that Niac gave the green light to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the over-50s and lowered the age limit on AstraZeneca to the same level was greeted as a boost to the programme. From a position where AstraZeneca was restricted to over-60s and Johnson&Johnson had not been cleared for us at all, it was. But it also creates new challenges.
