The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when — and how quickly — the economy can reopen. If all goes to plan, Britain will be the first country in Europe to get rid of restrictions and start the job of social repair.
Three factors give grounds for hope. First, there is remarkably little ‘anti-vax’ sentiment in the UK. More than 70 per cent of the population ‘would definitely get’ a Covid vaccine if it were made available to them this week. In Germany, it’s just 41 per cent; in France, 30 per cent. The willingness of the British to have the jab means that there will be no major problems with take-up. Second, the UK has a fridge-temperature vaccine — the Oxford-AstraZeneca one — approved by the regulator. This considerably eases the logistical challenges of distribution. Finally, we have a health service well suited to a mass immunisation programme.
Despite these advantages, ministers are nervous about whether the government can pull the vaccination programme off. ‘This is the real test because the British state has catastrophically failed so far,’ one Secretary of State tells me. (Tories often talk about the failures of ‘the state’ rather than their government.) But the initial signs are that the vaccine rollout is going better than the procurement of PPE last spring or the launch of the test-and-trace system. The daily publication of vaccination figures also brings huge public and media scrutiny of the programme, which should improve its performance.
Boris Johnson repeatedly got into trouble during the pandemic for making overly hopeful predictions, so now he is quick to downplay the prospect of a ‘big bang’ easing of restrictions. But if the government can hit its target of vaccinating the 13.5
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