Spring is in the air. The daffodils jauntily salute the warmer, longer days, the sun is daring to peek between the showers and an end to lockdown is in sight.
The Covid nightmare is not quite over yet, but the public mood is changing.
The vaccine is working incredibly well – and it’s about to get another massive boost as fresh supplies come on stream. All over-40s are set to have a jab by Easter, and all adults by June.
No wonder we’re getting restless for lockdown to ease faster than the PM’s “roadmap” promised.
The frustration is infectious and we’re already easing up – a slight spring in the step along the high road, a glimmer of cheeriness as we mingle more freely… even a little stretching of the rules on meeting friends?
It’s time to explore new ways of speeding up, like the drive-through vaccination scheme we reveal today – a potential springboard to earlier freedom.
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It’s only a pilot at this stage, but it could be revolutionary in pointing the way to faster inoculation of the population.
The through-a-car-window operation, which can dramatically speed up the rate of jabs, depends vitally on the supply of vaccine keeping up and that cannot yet be guaranteed.
But rolling it out nationally would put us a game-changing further distance ahead in the race against the virus.
Hand in hand must be a radical improvement in the lamentable performance of test and trace.
All options to get us out of the nightmare of lockdown more quickly must be explored.
People have been resolute and patient. But we are beginning to feel our endurance stretched.
The optimistic mood presents a dilemma for a PM with a poor track record of getting decisions on lockdowns right.
Open up too soon and we risk another wave, as scientists have warned, on top of a more virulent flu outbreak expected this winter.
Delay too long and both the economy and the people will face unendurable strain.
The options on any step-by-step easing must continue to err on the side of safety.
But in the name of sanity, we need a break soon.
