While the government's overall handling of the Covid-19 pandemic could, with the benefit of hindsight, be described assomething of a "curate's egg", its performance with regard to the rollout of the vaccination programme is markedly improved.The UK has surged ahead of pretty much all of Europe on the back of a pragmatic, risk-based and highly effective strategy.The key point here is "risk-based", given that such widespread deployment of new and relatively untried vaccines was never guaranteed to succeed. The potential for adverse side effects and failure to deliver the desired level of protection at a herd level could not be ruled out before the event, given a truncated trials period that would have been unthinkable in more normal circumstances.
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