At last, there is light at the end of the COVID tunnel and they are not exaggerating when they say good things come in threes.
Our local MP Sir John Hayes deserves our thanks for going the extra mile on behalf of his constituents in securing a commitment from Matt Hancock that an area-by-area review of the tier restrictions will be carried out on December 16.
That is good news for our area and represents a significant departure from the Government’s normal approach.
This significant concession is no small achievement and was only secured because Sir John and other Conservative MPs in Lincolnshire played hardball with the Government and battered the Health Secretary over the head with the facts and figures which show that South Holland & The Deepings is a low-risk area.
I know it is incredibly frustrating to have started with Tier 3 restrictions and in that respect Sir John is right to point out that even though the vaccine is now in the pipeline, it is not a free pass to let our guard down after such a long struggle – we must all continue to observe the common-sense rules of face, hands, space.
Unfortunately, I still see too many people shopping without a face covering, and the same when it comes to space.
If we are to emerge from Tier 3 on December 17, we must all play our part, which means wherever possible respecting other people’s air space by maintaining a two-metre distance. I continue to see far too many queues where it looks like the people behind want a piggy back. Please – resist the urge to huddle!
Sir John can only do so much, the rest is down to us to take personal responsibility for protecting ourselves and our loved ones by respecting other people’s air space. If not, we will all pay the price.
Vaccine – hurray, the first vaccine has proven to be safe following large scale clinical trials and the first batch of 800,000 doses arrives here in Great Britain this Monday. Is it safe? Well, I will have it without hesitation when called upon. The main reason it has arrived so quickly is because of the huge sums of money we and other countries have pumped into the vaccines development – hundreds of billions, as well as, the willingness of all the nations and companies engaged in its development to pull all the stops out.
The reason it normally takes so long to develop new vaccines is because the scientists spend years trying to raise the money for their research and development. Then the money only comes through in a trickle spaced over many years. With this pandemic the profs have had more money than they could have dreamt of – cost has quite literally been no barrier.
Going forward, it is vital that the Government builds public confidence in the vaccine and it would be great to see our local and national leaders leading by example and being among the first to be publicly vaccinated.
First in the world to approve the new vaccine – I thank the boffins at the MHRA on behalf of a grateful nation for their forward planning, and I salute them and their teams for working round the clock to go through the vaccine data with a fine-tooth comb.
This is a massive bonus for Great Britain that we can now get on with rolling out the largest vaccination programme in this country’s history. Is it a benefit of Brexit? Well lets put it this way, no other country in the EU has approved it yet, which in itself speaks volumes. In the inflexible one size fits all world of the EU they will all have to wait patiently.
Fortunately, Great Britain has taken back control and as a result we can do our own thing without prior approval from Brussels. In today’s global economy it is that flexibility and responsiveness that is going to serve GB PLC so well today and in the future.
Craig Jackson
Sutton Bridge
