Who’d want the job of vaccinating the nation?

Is that a light at the end of the tunnel — or a second lockdown thundering unstoppably towards us? News of a viable vaccine is the one development in the Covid drama that could drag the national mood out of the current despair that’s pulverising economic recovery; it would also provoke a euphoric stock market rally. And it’s clearly getting closer. But how close?

The chance of a magic potion for Christmas remains ‘slim’, according to Vaccine Taskforce chair Kate Bingham; spring next year is a safer bet, says chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, adding that ‘we should not overpromise’. He’s right there: the worst thing ministers could do — worse than any Covid cock-up so far — would be to create expectations of swift vaccination for the old, the vulnerable, and frontline workers, then fail to deliver.

So a crescendo of ‘vaccine breakthrough’ stories will be met, for the time being, by Downing Street discouragement — no doubt denying, for example, that Matt Hancock recently gave some Tory backbenchers the impression that eight million jabs could take place in December.