We don’t have the luxury of being semi-locked down until vaccine is rolled out

Mega-lab fab

THE news that TWO coronavirus testing mega-labs are opening in the UK is music to our ears.

Yes, it’s brilliant that we’ll soon have at least one vaccine. And eventually we hope that coronavirus can be eliminated altogether. But conquering the immense logistical challenge of rolling out millions of doses while prioritising the most vulnerable will take weeks, possibly months.

This biting recession has already plunged thousands into poverty, with shocking new research revealing that one-in-three adults can’t afford to put the heating on or buy fruit and veg.

So we simply don’t have the luxury of waiting around in semi-lockdown for half of 2021.

Rapid testing — though laborious — is the obvious stop-gap answer.

If these first two centres prove successful, millions of Brits might soon be able to do a quick test before work, school, or the pub — meaning a rapid return to our pre-Covid way of life.

This is a second chance for the ­thousands of good businesses now ­teetering on the brink of collapse

Some politicians think we should wrap the country in a sheath of restrictions until we’ve stamped out Covid. The rest of us, however, understand that our flatlining economy needs saving. 

And if that means finding imaginative, imperfect new ways of learning to live with the virus, then so be it.

Gord call

IT is not often we say this but Gordon Brown is right: Now is most certainly NOT the time for another referendum on ­Scottish independence.

With the country fighting Covid on one front and economic ruin on the other, we can’t afford to lose focus. 

And as Brits have learnt the hard way, referendums are expensive, bitterly divisive — and have a habit of sapping away political energy.

Nicola Sturgeon is a woeful leader who has failed Scotland on almost every front. But she’s a slick politician who will play to her strengths by ­fighting tooth and nail to put the independence question to the people in 2021. 

The Prime Minister must be ready to stop her in her tracks.

Stay Frosty

WELL done Chief Negotiator David Frost for sticking to his guns in the trade talks.

Of course we want a deal: Frictionless trade between the UK and EU would make life simpler for ordinary workers both here and on the continent.

But the EU’s demands are patently absurd to anyone but Tory-hating Remainer diehards on Twitter.

And we have fought too long and too hard for our sovereignty to sacrifice it at the eleventh hour.