The beginning of Covid-19 vaccinations is a remarkable moment

Editorial: The government has to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure the rollout happens in an orderly way

The coronavirus vaccine will be distributed in the coming weeks (AFP/Getty)

Someone, somewhere in the UK is the happy recipient of the first Covid-19 vaccination. The first in the western world, leaving aside trials, and the first of many millions to be administered.

It is a remarkable moment, and one for jubilation, despite the anonymity of the occasion. The achievement is down to an extraordinary global collaborative effort, with academia and the private sector forming a formidable alliance. 

It had little, if anything, to do with chauvinistic glory-hunter politicians. It is, after all, only a year since the first – officially acknowledged and recorded – coronavirus case, then unknown and unnamed, in Wuhan. The speed at which the world has moved to this point is, like so much else to do with this crisis, unprecedented, but this time “in a good way”, as the phrase goes.