After nearly a year of seeing a seemingly halting Covid-19 killer, it’s hard to comprehend the pace of progress now. Just a few months ago, Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, was telling colleagues that he did not think vaccinations would come in time. Now we have several, quite effectively, already delivered to millions around the world. The logistics, the safety: it goes as well as you would expect – in Britain in particular. The big question is what happens now.
Israel is the first to respond to the world. Benjamin Netanyahu, up for re-election in March, is now campaigning as vaccine king after breaking a contract with Pfizer to make his country a “model state” of Covid’s inoculation. It offers a lot of anonymous health data, to help Pfizer learn more, and provisions have come in handy.
Israel, a country the size of Wales, will soon be vaccinated by so many people every day and Italy, France and Germany combined. Already three-quarters of people over 60 (i.e., those most likely to die from the virus) have been protected. The rest will be covered within days, not weeks.
Israel will not see an R-number fall or diseases fall: not for a while, at least. The main effect of the vaccine should be a breakdown in the link between disease, hospitalization and death. Protecting a small number of people should mean big results, as the oldest 20 percent make up 90 percent of virus deaths. If all goes as expected, Israel will have reduced Covid from a deadly virus to a vicious beast, but he is no longer the killer we came out of.
The separation of the vaccine should be apparent in Israeli hospitals very soon. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute believe that the proportion of people over 60 in emergency care will have dropped to a level within two weeks. Before Easter, he believes, most of Covid’s deaths will be eradicated in Israel. It is the first major country in the world to achieve this.
And, all going well, Britain should be second to none. Our vaccination program is still moving forward. The Prime Minister’s first date – 13 million vaccinations by the middle of next month – is still in sight. Just over half of British Covid-19 deaths are among people over 80, and most should have been offered a vaccine within a fortnight. Add another two weeks to the introduction of vaccine protection, and the death toll from Covid-19 should be half what it would have been by the end of next month.
This is the prediction by the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, which has a very good history since its inception to monitor the pandemic. If Nadhim Zahawi ‘s vaccination program is virtually planned, he says, admission to the hospital will be half what it would be in mid – March. Intensive care admissions would be down only a third: a lower number as those treated tend to be younger. But overall, the Covid-19 burden on the health service will soon look very different.
While many may go wrong, ministers are still very confident – and more than they have allowed. Some governments believe it will easily exceed the official target – although they have been told not to publicly acknowledge it. Kate Bingham, who was in charge of a vaccine procurement program, almost let the cat out of the bag by saying that the record would be met “- and possibly higher”.
If she ‘s right, and if Covid’ s death rate falls 80 percent by mid – March, can locking restrictions still be proven? Politically, it is a difficult question and lines of battle are already being drawn. Jonathan Ashworth, the Shadow Health Secretary, has said that we cannot go back to normal “as long as the virus is still circulating” – which is likely to continue throughout the summer. Even with hospital numbers down, he says, Covid-19 can still be a devastating disease with lasting side effects
At this point, what would Matt Hancock say? As soon as everyone dies from the vaccine virus, would he be willing to lift restrictions and be accused of allowing the virus to spread among the youth? I called him recently and he said he was ready for the fight. “There are a lot of diseases in the world,” he said. “We have to spend our lives.”
Those words feel strange, coming from a minister who usually argues for a tighter lock. It was only last weekend that he privately argued that it was time to stop people from exercising (i.e., walking) with a friend. But that is not the opposite. In Israel, it is argued that tighter locks mean earlier rest – because the virus, if out of control, slows down vaccination. The country’s Covid tsar, Nachman Ash, has said he is ready to unravel even though virus levels remain high. “Our strategy is to protect those most at risk,” he said, “so that we can open up the economy even if the number of diseases has not yet declined.”
Skeptics complain that Israel’s example may not be as learned as it is unique: a small, organized country with the best digital health records in the world. It is not necessary to slow things down by asking vaccinated people to wait 15 minutes to see if they have an anaphylactic shock: they know who is at risk because their technology is telling them. But the basic theory that Israel is testing is that Covid’s power can be stopped for killing very quickly. That, if proven, will be a universal lesson.
Many Conservatives are growing anxious and want the Prime Minister to pledge to take a break as soon as the high-risk group gets vaccinated. But he has an obvious choice: that it is still a theory. Even Israel is waiting to see what the hospital numbers show, whether the theory is stopping. This all depends on how the relationship between disease numbers, hospital numbers and deaths is changing. Britain will find out soon, but not for a few weeks.
This week, Netanyahu told his cabinet that it is just because they are so close to the finish line that they have to control now. “This is how we save lives,” he said. “This is how we will be the first in the world to come out of the coronavirus.” It would be a huge boost for Boris Johnson if Britain came in second.