And welcome to it. The year we fight back!
Or at least that's the idea. Unfortunately we've already got problems. I fear the vaccine rollout is going to be fraught. The BBC revealed what I fear may be the truth. The government is planning instead to give 1 dose of the vaccine, treating more people, rather than doubling does for fewer people. This was the original plan because it is a more effective vaccine. Apparently this has the backing to the scientists, but I suspect that's pragmatic.
Talking about this the BBC gave the game away: they said that one dose was enough to prevent serious infection, keeping people out of hospital. That is the goal. They know they don't have the infrastructure for optimal vaccination quickly enough to fight the current situation. Both are circumstances we can fairly and squarely lay at the government's feet. They have spent ten years dismantling the NHS (further). while their response to the pandemic has ignored the scientists at every turn, with dire consequences. That trend is set to continue at the start of the first working week of 2021 as schools are not being kept shut. Does anyone really believe they have been made covid secure? Is it even possible?
So there it is. The government is hoping to dose enough people to keep society going until their vaunted herd immunity kicks in. A meagre dose of the one thing they promised us that we really wanted to believe would be ours: a vaccine. Now they are denying that. Perhaps it will work out. I'm not a scientists and so I have to admit it's possible I am incorrect and this minor mass vaccination, assuming the rollout goes smoothly, even if slowly, will actually work. We can but hope, but is keeping people out of hospital sufficient to bring an end to this pandemic in any reasonable fashion? I fear it will have to be. At the rate they are going it's going to take all year. Not just till Easter.
Even so, this is the new year. On a Friday. Which feels more like a Sunday (in my opinion; my inner clock has been completely out of whack this past fortnight). Let us use this period to replenish and reorient. Hopefully over the coming weeks the virus will recede. Every lockdown (even if this isn't technically a national one) has reduced teh spread. Lockdown's aren't the problem; it's the government opening too much too soon that causes teh spread. Factor in the festive season and boom you get 2020. Now that's over with, seeing in the new year finally, I hope people will start taking this a bit more seriously. January is that sober a month after all. Maybe then, by the time Easter rolls around, we will be back to where we were in the first half of Summer when things really were brighter. Before the Tories inevitably screwed up. A lesson there.
Happy New Year.
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