Vaccines are working – so why isn’t society reopening?

When the Prime Minister sets out his ‘roadmap’ for easing Covid restrictions on Monday, it will be against a backdrop that is both better and worse than could have been imagined six months ago. Worse because we have gone on to suffer a second wave of the disease that has seen almost as much excess death as the first wave. But better in the sense that we have vaccines that are in use and more effective than many hoped, with first doses given to 15 million people — almost a third of the adult population.

On several occasions last year, Boris Johnson referred to vaccines as the cavalry coming over the hill. The cavalry is here, and most of those at serious risk of dying from Covid are being inoculated. So why are we being fed such low expectations of when the economy and society will be allowed to re-open? And also being told that, rather than a restoration of liberty, we may be going into a regime of domestic vaccine passports where our ability to move around is linked to health status? ‘No jab, no job’ policies may be introduced in offices, with the connivance of a government supposedly opposed to the discrimination this would bring.