COVID-19 UK Political Analysis by Tim Hames – 22nd January 2021

We are almost three weeks in to the third national lockdown in England. The restrictions are due to be reviewed by Monday February 15th, which is also the target date for the first four priority groups to have been “offered” their initial vaccination. There are few in Whitehall who think that there will be anything more than an incremental and symbolic easing of the rules (and there are many who doubt even that) and most believe that while it might be possible to argue that all or almost all of the up to 15 million people in the first wave of vaccinations might technically have been “offered” their injection by that date, it is unlikely that 15 million people (or that proportion of them who are willing to participate in the programme) will have had the vaccine administered to them. While the capacity to conduct vaccination is increasing rapidly, it cannot reach the maximum possible until the intense pressure on the NHS from very large numbers of new cases eases substantially, which would allow other resources to be released for vaccinations.

This does not mean that mid-February has become an inconsequential moment either in the history of this lockdown or that no decisions of any importance will be taken before or about that time. In fact, a set of significant assessments and decisions will be reached
which, in time, will prove pivotal not only to the tentative timetable by which lockdown restrictions will be eased, but more longer-term questions about the degree to which what becomes the “new normal” in the UK is permanently different to the old normal.