The two ‘Vs’ that could derail Britain’s turbocharged recovery

The UK has already administered at least one jab to just over 50pc of the adult population, a fantastic achievement. But it has only managed to do this by extending the gap between the first and the second dose, thereby allowing far more people to receive at least one dose than otherwise. Performance against other countries doesn’t look as impressive on the full two jabs programme. It also means that the pace of first time vaccinations will automatically slow as second doses begin to soak up available supply.

That supply is in some jeopardy, with the EU threatening to block exports of both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines from EU plants to the UK market. It seems almost impossible to get to the bottom of what’s really going on here.

Can it, for instance, really be true that the UK has first dibs on all production of the Astra vaccine, wherever it is produced? The corporate line on this has long been that each plant is meant to satisfy the demands of each market, so that there are separate regional plants for the UK, the EU, the US and the developing world.

Theoretically, then, it shouldn’t make a difference to the UK if the EU bans Astra from exporting to the UK market. It might, on the other hand, make a difference to supplies of the vaccine produced by Pfizer, which satisfies the whole of the European market, including the UK, from EU plants. But that too would be complicated in that its vaccine production relies on an ingredient supplied from the UK. Vaccine supply chains are highly integrated internationally.

Whatever the truth, some kind of a shortfall in UK supply is plainly in prospect. The Serum Institute of India too is reining back on promised supplies to the UK market of the Astra vaccine. By some estimates, these shortfalls could delay the UK’s planned vaccine rollout by two months. The UK Government feigns confidence that this will not happen. We’ll see.