In and around a London lockdown. A Cartoon Diary by Pidge.

 The news that the EU would suffer a shortage of vaccine while the UK would be well supplied partly from production in the EU prompted the the President of the European Commission to propose banning exports to the UK even though the UK had secured supplies by moving fast and committing early while the EU had hardly got started.

 To deflect criticism from their people for vaccine shortages the EU began to lash out elsewhere and particularly at the UK who for once in the pandemic had been conspicuously successful. President Macron defended the EU approach by saying that going slower was safer and amazingly  insinuated that the Pfizer vaccine was not safe for the over 65’s who at that very moment were receiving  jabs in the UK. 

 The price of Christmas was inflated by the arrival of a more transmissible virus found in Kent which seriously exacerbated the number of infections. Even stricter measures were imposed. As seen in The Spectator 

 But really good news had arrived…

 The government had promised the country a Christmas where families could get together and so the price of a lockdown of December (and probably the same again in January) was paid for the privilege of three households being able to exchange bugs for five days at Christmas. But as the data deteriorated this began to look increasingly dangerous.

 Just before Christmas the government announced that people should not move from one part of the country to the other. As had become common the announcements of restrictions with a period of grace prompted a rush to beat the deadline.

 The Government’s vaccination policy was to prioritise those most likely to burden the NHS should they catch COVID and so the over 80’s were the main beneficiaries.