It’s been a good week for seeing the vaccine factor at work. We’ve had multiple real-world updates on the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against new variants of Covid-19 (this bodes well for the UK, which was the first country in the world to use the vaccine to protect its most vulnerable residents). And today we’ve had a revised economic forecast from the Bank of England, suggesting the UK’s impressive vaccine rollout could translate into the strongest growth since records began in 1949.
The Bank of England now predicts that the economy will expand by more than 7 per cent in 2021, up from its forecast of 5 per cent in February. Its latest set of predictions puts the BoE on the optimistic end of the spectrum, as the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast (from the Budget in early March) predicts a 4 per cent boost in 2021, followed by 7.3 per cent rise in 2022.
If the Bank’s forecast proves correct, it will be the fastest economic growth since the second world war.
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