COVID-19 UK Political Analysis by Tim Hames – 18th September 2020

It could have been worse. That is a reasonable assumption about sentiment within Whitehall some nine days after it felt obliged to announce a “rule of six” in England. It might also seem a strange conclusion after several days of negative headlines about the situation surrounding testing for the coronavirus, including clearly farcical suggestions or instructions that individuals travel hundreds of miles if they want to be tested. This is at a minimum a public relations calamity. Yet it could easily have been worse still if one of two, or even both, other events had also occurred. It would have been worse if the number of new infection rates had absolutely exploded as has been seen in numerous countries across Europe. Instead the figures this week have been (for now) rising but at a relatively stable rate, albeit at a level that is considerably higher than a few weeks ago. The 14-day cumulative number of UK COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people yesterday was 59.3. This is a leap from 22.5 three weeks ago. It is far behind the numbers for Spain (287.2), France (166.9), the Czech Republic (143.3), The Netherlands (82.5) and Austria (82.0) and comparable with Denmark (58.1) and Ireland (54.7). It could have been worse.

It would have been far, far worse if the “pause” in conducting the Phase Three trials of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine were still in place, suggesting the prospect of a lengthy delay of two or three months before it might come on stream, or even that what had long been viewed as the frontrunner in the race to find a vaccine had become a total failure.

When not spending their time attempting to reconcile supply and demand on testing, behind the scenes ministers and officials have been and are continuing to develop a detailed plan for how to conduct a mass vaccination campaign in the UK. As will be set out here, this is far from a straightforward exercise with some high hurdles to be cleared.