America is now striding ahead to vaccine victory
In Britain’s darkest hour after Christmas, I was in America. I watched with horror as US cases soared – but also with admiration as its vaccine programme finally got off the ground.
The American drive began later than the UK’s, and got off to a muchmaligned start. But as it began to motor, it became clear that, despite the vast scale, it was going to go like the clappers. Oh, and there were no supply issues. Trump bought many more doses than were needed, and the vaccines are made on home turf.
It was a seemingly far less organised programme than the UK’s. Nobody was informed by their doctor what was what. A friend of a friend alerted me to a loophole – a pharmacy vaccine trial – which meant we were able to get our parents jabbed in January. That loophole soon closed. Then, the powers-that-be opened up vaccines to all over-65s and anyone with two pre-existing conditions, including asthma, obesity and pregnancy… which covered millions. At first, appointments were hard to nab. The centralised state vaccination site crashed repeatedly, to the fury of residents. Appointments would disappear by the time you had registered. But people soon got the hang of it. In Massachusetts, shots were given out in hundreds of places. In New York, under-30s are now being vaccinated and Joe Biden says all adults will soon have been offered a first jab. Children are next. America has pulled victory from the jaws of devastating defeat. We need to do the same.