What the commentators said

Britain’s vaccination programme is speeding ahead, yet we’re no closer to knowing when normal life will return, said Janet Daley in The Sunday Telegraph. The Government has sensibly avoided offering specific dates for the easing of lockdown. But it would help if it at least clarified the criteria on which the decision will depend. Is the “R” rate the ultimate test, or the rate of hospital admissions, or the number of new cases?

It seems the situation could go two ways now, said Simon Kuper in the FT. The most likely outcome is that Covid gradually weakens, as more people are vaccinated, and “becomes at worst a nasty cold”. The scarier scenario is that vaccine-resistant mutations cause “years of mass death, repeated lockdowns, economic disaster and political dysfunction”. To reduce the odds of that happening, we need to ensure a rapid global distribution of vaccines. “The quicker humanity achieves herd immunity, the less time the virus has to mutate beyond control.” The biggest barrier to a return to “normality” is the slow pace of vaccination in poorer countries, agreed Stephen Bush in the New Statesman.

Under current plans, only 60% of Africa will be vaccinated in three years’ time.

Covid is likely to be with us as a seasonal, endemic virus for a long time, said Professor David Fisman on Reaction.life. But I’m optimistic about our prospects in the medium term. Pandemics have a natural life span. Even in the days before modern medicine, they came to an end. People devote a lot of attention to the bugs behind pandemics, but they’re akin to a discarded cigarette that depends on drought and an abundance of dead trees to cause a forest fire. The factor that really fuels these health crises is widespread susceptibility. As more people are exposed to various forms of the virus, either through infection or vaccination, that fuel will inevitably deplete. “So be confident. The idea of a forever-pandemic is about as plausible as the idea of a forever-forest fire. Not gonna happen.”