The progress of the vaccine programme — and the falling death toll — will reopen the debate in the Tory party about how quickly restrictions should be eased, as I say in the magazine this week. This will be tricky for Boris Johnson. He is inclined to go slowly to ensure that this is the last lockdown; just look at how he is now talking about a national tier system, not a local one, to avoid once more over-promising and under-delivering.
But Tory MPs see the fast pace of vaccination as meaning that it will soon be safe to open up again. One long-time ally of the Prime Minister admits that as deaths start to fall there will be increased pressure for easing up. But the lack of slack in hospitals — which currently have bed occupancy around 40 per cent higher than previous surge capacity — will make that hard.
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