More evidence is coming to light that the vaccines against coronavirus appears to be working. Despite the UK economy being properly reopened, the ‘R’ rate, which represents how readily a disease can spread, has dropped from 1.1 to 1.4 down to 0.8 to 1.1.
Many expected that with the reopening of the economy and more people mixing that this figure would not have dropped as much as it has in such a short amount of time. Removal of restrictions was predicted to cause an increase in infections, an exit wave as it was described, but this has not happened. The main thing that has changed are the arrival of effective and safe covid vaccines.
Whilst it can quite rightly be argued that covid2 has burned through the dry tinder of those who are especially vulnerable, there are still a lot of people who are at risk of contracting covid and it is these who are being protected by the vaccines. The vaccines are helping not only to protect those vaccinated from the more serious effects of covid but are also as we can see from the drop in the ‘R’ number, slowing down the spread. Covid is finding less hospitable homes in people than it once did. Even when breakthrough infections do occur, the effects on vaccinated individuals are far less than those who have not been vaccinated.
We could be seeing light at the end of the covid tunnel although at present we do not know for sure how long vaccine induced protection from covid lasts. It may well vary from individual to individual or be less effective in certain age groups than others. It might also be the case that not every vaccine protects against every genetic variant of covid and this raises the prospect that additional vaccines might be necessary to combat these variants in a similar way to how Tetanus vaccines need to be boosted occasionally. There are some unknowns about the length of time that vaccine induced protection lasts, however what we do know at present is that these vaccines work and with mRNA technology it’s far simpler, than it would be with conventional vaccine manufacture to modify the vaccine to take into accounts any dangerous variants that might arise in the future.
We can see from the situation in the United Kingdom which has very high levels of vaccination take up, that vaccination has slowed the spread of covid to an amazing extent. We are now in a far better position than we were this time last year and much better than we were in January of this year when vaccination was only starting to be rolled out. As an economy it is possible that Britain could emerge from the doldrums created by covid far earlier than some nations have and Britain needs to take advantage of that advantage. Vaccination and the consequent social recovery is not a gift that we should ignore instead British businesses should take all the opportunities afforded by our currently advantageous position with regards covid.
The last year and a half or so has been a nightmare for many Britons but vaccination really does look as if it will ensure that this is a nightmare that we can wake up from.
