If there’s one lesson you’d think Boris Johnson might have learned from his handling of the pandemic so far, it would surely be that it is too risky to set a date by which things will start returning to normal. And yet this evening the Prime Minister found himself talking about a date for schools returning, despite the timetable repeatedly slipping. Of course – as Johnson himself made clear at the Downing Street coronavirus briefing – 8 March is the earliest by which schools might start to return, rather than his deadline for anything happening.
Johnson was asked whether he was once again being too optimistic by talking about this date, but said that ‘opening schools is a huge priority for us all’. He was also much clearer about why schools were closed, saying at the start of the briefing:
‘The problem is not that schools are unsafe – teachers and headteachers have worked heroically to make sure that they are safe, that they are Covid secure. The problem is that by definition, schools bring many households together, and that contributes to the spread of the virus within the community, and drives up the R. And so it follows that if we are to get schools open, and keep them open, which is what we all want, then we need to be clear about certain things.’
Those certain things he’d listed in his Commons statement earlier, too: the success of the vaccination scheme, and proof that the vaccines ‘really are saving lives and preventing people from becoming seriously ill’. Speaking alongside him, deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said what would change things was a reduction in the number of hospitalisations.
Where the Prime Minister was not at all forthcoming was on the quite spectacular row between the EU and AstraZeneca over vaccine supplies. He wouldn’t comment on this, merely saying:
‘The issues that you raise are really a matter for our EU friends and the companies concerned but what I would say – and I think it’s very important to stress this – is that we in the UK firmly believe that the creation of vaccines is as a result of international exchange, international partnerships, and the distribution of vaccines around the world is also going to be a great multinational international effort.’
As James says, though, this row looks like it’s going to escalate even further, and Johnson may find he has to say a little more to his ‘EU friends’ in the coming days.
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