Take-up of vaccine will tell us much
NEWS that former States offices in Burnt Lane, St Martin’s, are to be brought out of a short-lived retirement to serve as the base for the island’s autumn Covid vaccine programme, have put the virus back on our front page for the first time in months.
We still see people in masks from time to time but largely, and publicly, the new normal, post-Covid, is now in place, and it doesn’t feel too far removed from the world of January 2020 for most of us.
Cases being recorded in the UK are currently as low as they have ever been, and are falling across Europe, meanwhile, in the islands, we registered another 121 cases during the past seven days, as active cases again fell week-on-week.
We have no idea what variants will emerge this winter and whether an Omicron-style shock will send case numbers sky-high again, leading to cancellations of Christmas parties and so on. All that was only months ago, and yet in many ways feels like so much further away.
It will be interesting to see how many people head to Burnt Lane, and brave the potential for traffic chaos in this most narrow of roads, from the beginning of next month for the latest vaccination booster.
And what that might then say about islanders' ongoing attitude towards Covid, and how that might manifest itself across the winter.