Should Britain be vaccinating teenagers?

Last week there was acute concern in government about the country’s re-opening. Would restrictions need to be reimposed when schools return in September? Ministers fretted. But those nerves have now been replaced by cautious optimism. Case numbers have been falling for a week straight and it increasingly looks as if this wave has peaked.

No one in Downing Street wants to declare mission accomplished. What will happen to the numbers when people’s fear of being ‘pinged’ by Test and Trace eases and they start to socialise more? Cases need to be falling consistently between now and schools returning.

Privately, scientists are stressing risks remain. They warn that there is still a danger of another wave with a bigger peak than this one. But the situation a week after all legal restrictions have been lifted (apart from the requirement to isolate) is far better than the models predicted.

For Boris Johnson, a successful reopening would be a huge relief after a difficult few weeks. The Conservative party’s lead over Labour in the polls has narrowed. Back in May, when the Tories took Hartlepool in a by-election and turned in a strong performance in the English local elections, they had a clear message. They argued that the UK’s impressive vaccine programme meant that society could be safely reopened. The delay to reopening announced on 14 June, prompted by the Delta variant and rising infection numbers, meant that this case lost its potency. Tory MPs complain that in both the Chesham and Amersham and Batley and Spen by-elections, the party had no narrative, no story to tell.

When society did reopen on 19 July, there was considerable public nervousness about whether it was the right thing to do. One experienced hand admits that the decision to drop restrictions was out of step with public opinion, which has been cautious throughout the pandemic.