No room for slip-ups as vaccine shows Covid war is nearly won

WHEN the scale of the coronavirus crisis became clear many people saw lockdown – rightly – as the only way to keep themselves and their families safe.

As the pandemic went on... and on... some of that support began to drift away. Voices were raised against what some saw as over-zealous measures. While a majority accepted “lockdown 2” in November and the creation of tough new tiers in December a debate about the level of restriction and about the balance that needed to be struck between locking down and trying to keep life as normal as possible ensued.

Yesterday to all intents and purposes that debate should have been settled. Two things – a National Health Service clearly struggling to cope with a surge in Covid cases and the approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – have changed the landscape.

If there were no clear route out of this crisis it would still be necessary to try to find ways to avoid the toughest lockdown measures, even with the level of disease now putting the NHS at risk. But with the potential for everyone who is any way vulnerable to this virus to be vaccinated in a matter of months, the end of this crisis is in sight.

On that basis the argument against taking whatever measures are necessary to keep people safe for one last heave crumble to dust. What point can there be to argue over a few more weeks of restrictions when the potential prize of protection for the vast majority of the population is so great and so nearly in our grasp?

Schools were the one thing that, after lockdown one, seemed sacrosanct when it came to Covid restrictions. They needed – the argument went – to be kept open at all costs because of the risks to children of an interrupted education. Yet if the effect of reopening all schools, primary and secondary, after the Christmas holidays adds to the risk of a rising ‘R’ number and an NHS overwhelmed, why do it? Online teaching has been tried and, for most, it works. And the time frame could be relatively short, now we have a second vaccine approved and ready to be administered.

The Education Secretary decided yesterday that the priority had to be to get children back into schools as quickly as possible – yet many experts warn that coronavirus is spreading fastest among the young and while the impact on them may be mild, the risk of spread in the wider community remains high.

It is yet to be seen whether the delays in re-starting the secondary school Spring term prove to be sufficient in bearing down on the spread of the virus.

Throughout the pandemic the accusation levelled at the government has been that it has acted too slowly. We have consistently argued that while some mistakes have clearly been made, striking a balance is not an easy job. Ministers have, for the most part, done their best in extremely difficult circumstances.

Their biggest success came in backing the development and rollout of the vaccinations. With the impact of those vaccinations now being felt, vigilance is the key. Let’s not throw away all this progress.