Spain surges ahead while Johnson fades

Whatever else he may have made a mess of – and I’m not going to get into an argument today as to how many cockups there have been – Boris Johnson has always pointed with pride to one solid achievement. And when I say ‘always’ I really mean always. Over and over. For a long time, his only answer to any criticism was to point to how fast the British Covid vaccination programme was going.

Yes, that’s his great claim to triumph. He got the British vaccination programme going faster than most. In particular, he got it going faster than the EU’s. That, though, was a pretty low bar. The EU Commission has a good track record of running major tendering processes, and next to no experience of running big procurements. Under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, it royally screwed up the vaccine procurement exercise. That wasn’t the proudest moment of Ursula von der Leyen’s career. It didn’t take much for Johnson to do better.

That didn’t, of course, stop Brexiters claiming Britain's small advance as a success for Brexit even though it really, really wasn’t. Nothing prevented Britain doing the same thing as an EU member. 

Johnson liked to keep blowing his own trumpet about the success of the programme. His supporters liked to keep gloating at their man’s supposed win over the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, that meant they didn’t notice what was happening to their much-trumpeted lead.

Specifically, they didn’t notice how Spain, my new home country, was, much more quietly, with far less gloating or boasting, gradually closing the gap on Britain. Last week, it overtook Britain on numbers fully vaccinated. 

Spain overtakes the UK on percentage of people fully vaccinated

This week, Spain overtook the UK even on numbers having at least one shot.

Spain overtakes the UK on percentage of people 
with at least one vaccine shot

Why’s that important? Clearly, being fully vaccinated doesn’t give total protection against the virus. But then no one claimed it would. There’s nothing surprising about vaccinated people getting Covid. Vaccines reduce the risk of being infected, but they don’t reduce it to zero. If people keep being exposed to the virus, then even if they’re vaccinated, there’s a chance they’ll catch it.

The only way to cut the risk further is to reduce the likelihood of people being exposed to the virus in the first place. And that requires a far higher proportion of vaccination. The latest view, with the more transmissible delta variant, is that the previous target of 70% vaccination is too low. To have a real impact on exposure, we need to reach 80% or perhaps even 90% vaccination.

That’s why I’m pleased to see Spain forging so steadily ahead.

In the meantime, though, it does seem that vaccinated people tend to have far milder cases, and are 50-60% less likely to pass it on to anyone else. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, just that it’s half as likely, or less. 

Being vaccinated does you a lot of good. It doesn’t make you totally safe but it makes you a lot safer. And it helps protect everyone else too.

Conversely, not being vaccinated exposes you to more risk of getting sick, and of being a great deal sicker it you do. It also contributes to keeping the virus circulating and exposing everyone else to it. So it’s a kind of masochistic selfishness: you indulge your own unfounded delusions, which hurts others, but it harms you at least as much.

So Johnson was right to get a vaccination programme going fast in the UK. Which makes it all the sadder that he hasn’t been able to keep the early momentum going. It seems that six EU nations have overtaken Britain for fully vaccinating citizens. And Spain, as we saw, is ahead even on those partly vaccinated.

But that’s so Johnson. Good at celebrating a temporary gain. But rather short of the tenacity to achieve a worthwhile but long-term goal.

Johnson needs to get his finger out
if he wants to stay ahead of the EU...