Yesterday's decision of the European Medicines Agency to approve Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine adds an important weapon to the continent's armoury in its battle with the virus. It brings to four the number of vaccines cleared by the agency for use in the European Union – a situation that, notwithstanding frustrations over the pace of the vaccination campaign, reflects the remarkable global scientific collaboration of the past year.
The Johnson & Johnson product will not be available immediately – Irish authorities expect the first deliveries in April – but the State is due to receive 600,000 doses over the second quarter. Given that this vaccine, uniquely among those now in use, requires only one shot, its availability in large quantities will be essential to the Government’s target of giving 80 per cent of adults a jab by the end of June.
The grounds for caution are self-evident. AstraZeneca’s innumerable missed delivery targets so far this year are a warning against taking such pledges as anything more than general aspirations. A proliferation of new variants could yet throw the world’s vaccination plans into disarray by resisting some of the early vaccines.
But, in broad terms, the route to an exit from the present emergency is now clear. In Ireland, it consists of retaining strict controls on social and economic life until such time as the disease is all but suppressed in the community. That combined with a steadily-accelerating vaccine campaign from April onwards, the thinking goes, will allow for a gradual, safe reopening – this time for good.
The closer each stage in that reopening comes – the next review will be in early April – the more intense the lobbying from sectoral interests will become. Already, golfers are pleading for special status and TDs are pushing for bigger funerals. For now, such appeals should not be entertained. In any decision on reopenings, the greatest weight must be given to public health advice based on the epidemiological situation at a given moment – not to those who happen to shout the loudest.