What just happened
- Bobi Wine claimed victory in Uganda’s historic election after voters in some parts of the country stayed to watch the count after polls closed. President Museveni claimed an early lead; final results are due tomorrow.
- Xi Jinping used a letter to the founder of Starbucks to call for a reset in US-China trade relations.
- A new study estimated that more foreign-born residents left Britain last year than in any other year since the Second World War.
… Not just between the virus and the vaccines but between nations desperate for herd immunity. So far the competition seems to take the form of governments striving to do better because of positive headlines from elsewhere (Israel, UK, early hiccups notwithstanding). The risk is that the competition turns into a beggar-thy-neighbour scramble for supply. Notes from the vaccination front line:
- UK. Infections are surging, but so are vaccination numbers and confidence that the government’s ambitious targets will be met. Specifically: ministers reckon not only will the 15 million most vulnerable have had their first shot by mid-February but that all over 50s – nearly half the country – will have been vaccinated by mid-to-late March*. Jabbers are finding ways of squeezing extra doses from the vials when there’s vaccine left over, and from April, officials say, it will be up to GPs whether to stick with the “first dose first” strategy or go back to the 21-day interval between doses recommended by manufacturers.
- US. Biden has committed his administration to vaccinating 100 million Americans in its first 100 days, and is now deeply worried about the scale of the task. Politico says he gave his incoming vaccination czar a dressing down in front of colleagues earlier this week for not moving fast enough. Team Trump can be blamed for much of this – Biden’s people had to beg for a month to be let into vaccine roll-out meetings and were allowed to join them for the first time this week. But from 20 January this is emphatically Biden’s problem, and there are basic structural obstacles to speedy distribution. We hear that even in Manhattan you don’t get invited to be vaccinated. You have to book. Freedom cuts both ways.
- Israel. For three days in December the world’s fastest vaccinator was Bahrain, but from Boxing Day Israel has left the competition in its wake. One in four Israelis have now had their first dose compared with one in 25 in the UK, one in 30 in the US and a world average of fewer than one in 200, which is roughly where France and China are. Israel is aiming to vaccinate its entire population in short order (paying a reported 40 per cent premium over EU rates for the Pfizer vaccine) and has mobilised its military and all four state-regulated health insurance agencies to get it done. AFP reports that Arab Israelis have been reluctant to get vaccinated, leaving clinics in places like Nazareth largely empty except for residents of nearby kibbutzim. But even that is changing. Two weeks ago only 4 per cent of Arab Israelis over 60 had been vaccinated. Now it’s 40 per cent.
- France. Still struggling to catch up with most of the rest of the EU in terms of vaccinations per head, France requires everyone being vaccinated to have a personal consultation with a doctor first and give informed consent. The doctors have to read a 61-page manual on how to use the vaccines and each vial has to be mixed by being turned upside down ten times.
*London confidential: The Times says ministers are “infuriated” with the Scottish government for publishing confidential figures on its own vaccination forecast of 2.8 million jabs by 14 March, which would be equivalent to 32 million people being vaccinated by then across the UK. Why the crossness? Apparently because of concerns that other countries could lean on vaccine-makers to prioritise them over the UK if they knew how much the UK was getting. Which is a lot – 360 million doses on order, says a well-placed source, for a population of 68 million. Which in turn implies a working assumption that we’ll all need repeat boosters.
