This week, the UK passed the terrible milestone of 100,000 COVID deaths.
We must never become numb to these figures. Because behind every single number is a life lived. Grieving friends and families. Loved ones left behind.
It represents a terrible failure. And we need to learn the lessons of how it happened.
Why did top Tory politicians spend years running down our NHS, cutting thousands of beds and short of nurses left us unprepared when the crisis hit.
How did Britain have the highest number of deaths in Europe? Why have we had the deepest recession of any major economy?
Thanks to the genius of our scientists, the brilliance of our NHS and the hard work of the volunteers we have reasons for hope.
The rollout of the vaccine is our light in the dark.
That’s why Labour, the trade unions and the Mirror started the Let’s Vaccinate Britain campaign. To get more volunteers signed up and do everything in our power to support the national effort.
In the coming weeks, the most vulnerable in our country will be vaccinated.
And ministers have promised the number of people we are able to vaccinate every week should increase as more supplies increase.
This gives us an opportunity to think about the next stages of the pandemic.
The national priority should be getting schools open safely, so that our children can get back in the classroom
The Government says it wants the same. But we have seen precious little evidence of a plan from Boris Johnson or his hapless education secretary, Gavin Williamson.
Frankly, it’s shameful that the Government have had schools closed for the best part of a year.
The impact on young people’s physical and mental health is terrible. The damage to their education could take years to fix.
No stone should be left unturned in doing everything possible now to prepare schools to open and stay open.
So as a first step towards getting schools open, let’s take the opportunity to vaccinate teachers over the February half term.
As the Mirror has shown, the British public thinks this is the sensible approach.
NHS England boss Simon Stevens said the other day there should be a discussion about it.
Last year just two weeks after term started there were over 25,000 teachers off school because of Covid causing even more disruption to learning. Boris Johnson musn’t repeat that again.
Too many times during this crisis the Government has been too slow to act. Children are the future of our country, they can’t become forgotten victims because of Boris Johnson’s lack of leadership.
