Tom Harwood: Covid hasn't gone away, we have to put rocket boosters under our booster programme

Covid has been, wonderfully, not at the top of our bulletins for a long time. People in England are living normal lives, save for the odd mask here or there.

Yet in the last week there has been some cause for concern. Cases, hospitalisations, and deaths are rising again. They had been bumping around at what appeared to be societally acceptable levels yet this rise now seems more sustained.

Concerningly, rises are profound amongst the over 65s. Worry is starting to set in in some sectors. The Government is not yet on the edge of opening it’s ‘winter toolbox’ - a set of so called ‘Plan B’ measures.

Measures that include vaccine passports. But there are now calls for it to do so. Indeed, calls for it to go further than that. The Chief executive of the NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor went as far as declaring last night that “The government ought to not just announce that we’re moving to plan B, but it should be plan B plus".

Plan B plus here clearly refers to deploying more than the toolbox, deploying more Non Pharmaceutical Interventions - restrictions on peoples lives this winter.

But is this all too premature? Is this all last year’s thinking?Unlike last winter we now have a fantastic low cost pharmaceutical intervention that can both work to prevent the overwhelming of our hospitals, and keep us free in our daily lives.

The vaccine has in the past and can again take the place of restrictions. Allowing us to live normally.Our jabs proved fantastic at reducing cases, hospitalisations, and deaths over the last few months - despite a totally open society, with as much household mixing as you can get your hands on, with all the joys of human interaction.

But we know that the vaccines don't last forever. To some extent we may be victims of our own success. Jabbing so early means our immunity is waning sooner than much of the rest of the world.

Our booster programme is being deployed with nowhere near the urgency of our initial rollout.

Covid hasn't gone away. It is still dangerous. Our elderly and our hospitals may still be vulnerable.

If we want to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, and therefore keep our society open, we have to put rocket boosters under our booster programme.