A Moment to Be Proud: Hitting 15 Million Vaccine Doses

We’ve done it. After several weeks, uncertainty about the rollout and a bust-up with Europe, the United Kingdom has finally done it: we have given out over 15 million vaccine doses. From Land’s End to John O Groats, from Folkestone to the Outer Hebrides, 1 in 4 adults now have some degree of protection against the thing that shall not be named… with who knows how many more having developed natural protection from infection, asymptomatic or otherwise. 

In a little over two months, all people in the top four priority groups of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have been offered a vaccine: care home residents, carers, frontline health and social care workers, the over 70s and the clinically extremely vulnerable. In a matter of weeks, we have protected the most vulnerable in our society – a move that has vastly reduced case numbers, and is actively reducing morality as we speak. Research by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at our very own University of Oxford has shown that vaccines are working: the case fatality rate has fallen across all age ranges - bordering on a 35% fall in the elderly. 

This would not have been possible were it not for the selfless sacrifice and dedication of all in society. The frontline NHS workers. The vaccine volunteers. The armed forces. The clinicians, doctors and scientists working round the clock to get the vaccines from a blueprint in a lab, into vials and into people’s arms. Only Israel and the United Arab Emirates have injected more doses per head of the population.

According to figures from Our World in Data at the Oxford Martin School, again at our very own University of Oxford, the UK has vaccinated more than France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, and Bulgaria combined. On a share of people who have received at least one dose basis, the UK is second in the world. Having vaccinated in excess of 21% of people, only - you guessed it - Israel at 44% has vaccinated more. 

In the words of one of the UK’s greatest statesmen, however, “This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. This is just perhaps the end of the beginning.” There is a wide chunk of the population that has yet to be vaccinated, and whilst hitting the 15 million dose target is an achievement we must be proud of, we must not let down our guard.

Now is not the time to unilaterally lift all restrictions, but nor is it the time to remain in the current form of stasis. The 15 million administered doses is the groundwork upon which we can build our economic recovery. The government should not, the government cannot rest until vaccines are offered to all priority groups, and subsequently all adults in the UK.

Nonetheless, the rollout shows us exactly what this country, what our country can achieve when working together. It shows us that we are far more than just the simple sum of our parts. It shows us the very best of British. 

Nélson Fernandes Serrão is a first-year reading PPE at Trinity College.