UK vaccines mean hope is here
If you ever visit the church at Staunton Harold in the rolling hills of Leicestershire, I’d encourage you to read the inscription above the west tower. It pays tribute to Robert Shirley’s efforts to construct the church during the English Civil War: “It is his special praise to have done the best of things in the worst times, and to have hoped in the most calamitous”.
Amid an unprecedented global pandemic that has affected every aspect of our lives and sadly claimed so many, it is vaccines that offer us hope. To support Australia in its vaccine efforts, we are sharing four million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses to Australia as part of a “vaccine swap” between our two countries. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “from Downing Street to Down Under, we’re doubling down on doses”. This follows a similar swap arrangement with Singapore, and Australia will return vaccines to the UK in the future, helping manage inventories to ensure vaccines are not wasted and are deployed when and where they are needed most.
The more people who receive both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, the quicker and safer we can make a return to normality as we learn to live with Covid-19 through maximising our protection against the virus. And thanks to an extraordinary global scientific effort, we have the vaccines and knowledge to put this possibility is within reach. The maxim that “none of us are safe till all of us are safe” is not border limited, and our fightback against Covid is, and continues to be one that requires a global response to the pandemic. This Pfizer swap with Australia is in addition to the UK ‘s support for other nations through COVAX, the international scheme designed to ensure vaccines are available for poorer countries around the world. The COVAX doses are part of the 100 million vaccines the Prime Minister pledged the UK would share over the following year at June’s G7 in Cornwall.
In the UK, our vaccination program saw the most ambitious peacetime mobilisation of volunteers and health workers in our history to see nearly nine in 10 over 16s in the UK receive their first dose and over three-quarters have both jabs. Now we have protected the most vulnerable, our independent expert group who advise our government is looking at the provision of vaccines to 12 -to 15-year-old’s.
This strong and continuing vaccine uptake is providing a wall of defence against serious Covid-19 illness, with the latest stats showing that the UK’s vaccine rollout has saved 100,000 lives in England alone. We remain cautious to the impact of the Delta strain, but thanks to our high vaccine uptake, life has reached an openness in the UK that had long been suspended. Restaurants, theatres and pubs are open, families and friends can socialise again, and our football teams, including my beloved Liverpool, are once more playing in front of fans.
For many Australians living under lockdown restrictions, life in the UK offers a glimpse of the future and what is possible. As I write, I am in lockdown in Canberra, but I take comfort from my conversations with UK based colleagues and the knowledge that a strong vaccine rollout means we should soon reach the same point here in Australia.
The UK’s friendship with Australia extends beyond vaccines. This year we reached Agreement in Principal on a free-trade agreement, our Carrier Strike Group is currently making its way through the Indo-Pacific, and this week we launched the UK/Australian season, the largest cultural exchange between our nations. Whether it’s trade, scientific innovation, defence, or the arts, the UK and its people will always back our Australian family and friends.
Covid-19 has been a global challenge like no other, but vaccines mean hope is here.
Vicki Treadell is the UK High Commissioner to Australia