THIRTY-SIX million people have had their all-important first dose, which evidence shows provides the bulk of protection against Covid, and 19 million have had both doses.
You could be forgiven for thinking that there is light at the end of the tunnel of this awful pandemic and that we really are on the “one-way road to freedom” the PM promised.
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The so-called Indian variant has made some fear that we could be on the brink of local or national restrictions once again. This should not happen.
The latest evidence shows that our vaccines work against variants, including the Indian variant.
Even if new variants come along later which evade vaccines, we have some of the world’s best genomic sequencing which means new variants can be identified quickly, and vaccines can be adapted to rapidly fend them off.
Sir Patrick Vallance has said that Covid will be endemic and with us “forever”.
Covid will keep mutating and creating variants. We must fight them off with surge testing, vaccines and treatments – not restrictions and lockdowns.
If we accept that we can only combat variants through restrictions and lockdowns, this means seasonal restrictions for the rest of time – a disaster for businesses, jobs and peoples’ wellbeing.
To those with secure jobs in Whitehall who preach the precautionary principle, I say this: your abundance of caution will mean other people receive redundancy notices.
Let’s keep these variants in perspective, get the jab when it’s your turn and we can all get through this together.
