The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Variants, vaccines and goodbye to Captain Sir Tom Moore

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About 80,000 people in eight places in Surrey, London, Kent, Hertfordshire, Southport and Walsall were asked in door-to-door visits to take tests after the South African variant of coronavirus was found in these areas. Another mutation was found in the Kent variant. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 31 January, total UK deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus) had stood at 105,571, including 8,242 in the past week. Numbers in hospital fell. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was found to have a substantial effect on the spread of the virus. By Sunday 31 January, 8,977,329 first-dose vaccinations had been given, and 491,053 second doses. All elderly care-home residents were said by the government to have been offered a first vaccination. Captain Sir Tom Moore, aged 100, who raised £32 million for NHS charities last year, died in hospital after catching Covid. Police found about 200 people having a party at the Richmond Hotel, Liverpool. Pubs and restaurants on the Isle of Man reopened and social distancing was abandoned.

The European Union found it hard to deal with a shortfall of Covid vaccines. The European Commission invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to control any imports of Covid vaccines to Northern Ireland from Ireland. Ireland was not informed of the measure. The next day the EU revoked its move in the face of condemnation from Belfast, Dublin and Westminster (although the British government kept resolutely to an eirenic line, with Michael Gove, the cabinet office minister, calling it a ‘mistake’). Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, was widely seen, even among EU members, to have behaved foolishly in a moment of pressure. The root problem was that the EU, acting as a buyer for its members, had signed a contract in August with AstraZeneca for 300 million doses, but the company would be able to send only 31 million by the end of March.

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