With coronavirus cases spiralling lockdown must be taken seriously

GOOD things come in threes, so the expression goes. And it certainly feels like that with news a third vaccine was approved for use in the UK yesterday.

The jab, from US biotech firm Moderna, has been given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), joining the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca.

A bit like buses, we waited months for a vaccine and then three came along at once!

With the delivery of the Pfizer vaccine, followed by the Oxford jab rollout now underway, it does appear that we have the weaponry to take the upper hand in the battle to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Hailed as “excellent news” by the Prime Minister and “fantastic” by the Health Secretary, this third vaccine certainly adds to the immunisation firepower.

However, the Moderna jab – shown to have a very high level of effectiveness – will not be available in the UK until the spring, with some 17 million doses already on order.

Nearly 1.5 million people in the UK have already been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines and the Government is aiming to jab 15 million of those most at risk by mid-February.

With the Army helping with logistics one expects the rollout to gather pace and hit vital targets.

Conservative former cabinet minister and North Somerset MP Dr Liam Fox, a qualified but non-practising doctor, this week queried in the Commons why he was being asked to complete courses on “conflict resolution, equality, diversity and human rights, moving and handling loads and preventing radicalisation” in order to give the jab.

He is right to ask. Everything must be done to, as Boris Johnson put it, “blast away” such red tape and remove all obstacles to a successful mass vaccination programme.

Hospitals are coming under mounting pressure and a ‘ major incident’ has now been declared in London as rising numbers of patients threaten to overwhelm facilities. This is no time for box ticking exercises.

The escalation in cases is extremely concerning and the country is now seeing an estimated 100,000-plus new infections per day.

Here in the Westcountry cases are rising and the South West region currently has the highest R-rate in the country.

Against this backdrop, Cornwall Council leader Julian German flags up his concerns on Page 6, saying that people may not be taking this lockdown seriously enough. “We need to see people stopping going out and staying at home. The amount of traffic on the roads suggests that people are still going out and we are concerned that people are not taking this as seriously as they should be.”

Just because vaccinations have begun in earnest there is no room for complacency, and every one of us must do all we can to protect ourselves and others.

It is far too soon to let our guard down even a fraction, and everyone should take this lockdown at least as seriously as we did the first one last spring when, almost without exception, people abided by the letter, and spirit of restrictions.