Like the coming of spring, there is hope that the end of the Covid lockdown is in sight.
From Scotland yesterday came the tremendous news of the Edinburgh University study which shows the Covid vaccine massively reduces hospital admissions by more than 80 per cent.
This is the first sign of the real-world impact of the vaccination in the UK.
If anyone had any doubts about the usefulness or effectiveness of the vaccine programme, these should now be dismissed.
Anyone, of any age, who has been offered a jab but chosen not to take it up should reconsider .
From London came the dates and data from Boris Johnson giving hope that lockdown can be lifted by mid-summer in a staged and careful transition.
A similar route is expected to be outlined by Nicola Sturgeon for Scotland and for once the over-optimistic Prime Minister has been reined in to a realistic and deliberately cautious timetable.
For some the seven-week wait for an outdoor pint at the pub will be too long, for others it will be unrealistically ambitious for a deadly virus which we are going to be living with for some time to come.
Managing expectations, in what we have learned is an uncertain world, will be the next big task for political leaders.
For the rest of us managing our impatience with lockdown and sticking to the safety rules until the vaccines have done their work will be the last big challenge.
But we do that over the next few months with some real encouragement that things are moving in the right direction.
Sorry figures
The owners of Cameron House can’t bring back the two young men who died in a fire in their hotel.
But they should have the decency to face their families and apologise in person for their loss.
Since the fire, the hotel’s owners have been an elusive group, obscured behind a PO Box in the Cayman Islands.
Nobody from the company has faced the families and uttered the word “sorry”.
This lack of accountability has compounded the grief of Jane Midgley whose son Simon died in the fire with his partner Richard Dyson.
Jane wants justice, not in the form of jail time or paltry fines, but in answers and meaningful designation of blame.
A fatal accident inquiry must now be held, not only to understand exactly what happened but to prevent such an avoidable tragedy in the future.
The profits of big corporations can’t continue to take priority over the sanctity of life.
The families of Simon and Richard have lost so much, the least they deserve is the hope of some semblance of closure and peace.
