December 30

Today, the Oxford Astrazenica vaccine has been approved!!!!!!

One dose, with a booster three months later. Easily transported, easily stored and cheap!! This surely marks the closest we will get to liberation from Covid 19-for the foreseeable future.

So why aren’t I euphoric and jumping for joy? Firstly, because I’m a cynical, catastrophising human being and secondly, because there are just so many imponderables: Brilliant that we will be protected after only one dose – or at least we will not get the illness so badly if we do get it. What does “so badly” mean? And what about the jab being 70% effective? Does that mean 70% of people are protected ? Or that everyone who has it is protected 70% of the time? And how do we live our lives 70%? Will it be effective against the new strain of Coronavirus? We don’t know for sure. We think so. Will those of us who’ve been vaccinated still be infectious? We don’t know for sure. We think so. And, if everyone who gets the shot is still infectious, surely we will have to go on wearing masks, social distancing and disinfecting? So in what sense will the pandemic be over? Until, that is, we have achieved herd immunity- this year, next year, sometime, never?

“The writer” declares himself happy at the prospect of being rid of the fear that has haunted him throughout the pandemic but I, who have been mega-cautious but not afraid, am only just beginning to fear. As things are now, I feel in control: if we stay far enough away from others, don’t meet people indoors and disinfect both ourselves and what comes into the house, we can be reasonably sure of not contracting it.

Once we have been vaccinated, all is uncertain and we have to be constantly wondering what percentage of risk we are prepared to take – or at, least I will.

Maybe these fears will prove groundless the more data are published and the more work is done. My reservations and anxieties feel churlish in the face of such brilliant scientific achievement. At the beginning of this pandemic, anything that guaranteed we would not be in ICU on a ventilator would be the panacea we had dreamed of. And, hopefully, it will be. Either way, we will be first in the queue when our cohort is summoned to the nearest vaccination centre.