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      in World Politics

      Is India’s Vaccine Diplomacy a Good Idea?

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      In terms of numbers, India ranks the third worst after the US and Brazil when it comes to COVID-19 infections. At the time of publishing, the country has recorded over 12.3 million confirmed cases and more than 163,000 deaths. The BBC reports that India is facing a “severe, intensive” second wave of the pandemic. The situation in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab has reached alarming proportions.

      How Did India Combat COVID-19 in 2020?

      Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a stringent lockdown that brought economic activity to a shuddering halt. This lockdown led to a dramatic contraction of India’s GDP by 23.9% in the April-June 2020 quarter. The economy recovered somewhat in later quarters, but it experienced a recession in the 2020-21 financial year for the first time in 25 years.

      Arguably, the lockdown was a success in preventing a rapid spread of COVID-19 last year. In percentage terms, India did not do too badly. After all, it has nearly 1.4 billion people in contrast to the US population of 330 million. The daily new cases in India dramatically declined until recently when the second wave hit the country. Thanks to a young population and public health measures, India experienced a remarkably low mortality rate.

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      India has low per capita income and poor health care facilities. So, its achievement in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak has been hailed by many public health experts, including the World Health Organization (WHO). In January, India launched a massive vaccination program to fight the pandemic. This was possible because the country has a track record of mass vaccination and massive vaccine production.

      Indian manufacturers supply more than 60% of the world’s vaccines against diseases like polio and measles. Early on, the country began mass production of two COVID-19 vaccines: Covishield and Covaxin. The Serum Institute of India (SII), which partnered with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, had already produced and stocked approximately 70 million Covishield doses even before India granted emergency approval to their vaccine. 

      On January 16, India launched an ambitious plan to vaccinate around 300 million people by June. The world’s largest vaccination program focused first on those with high vulnerability to the coronavirus. First on the list were health care workers. They were followed by those who were 65 years or older. This ensured that the vaccine was not monopolized by the richest sections of Indian society. 

      As vaccinations have increased, the Modi government has eased restrictions in the country. Crowds have gathered at large weddings, sporting events and festival celebrations. The government lifted restrictions to stimulate economic activity. A poor country like India with a large population could not afford a lockdown for too long. However, the easing of restrictions has not only led to increased economic growth, but also rising cases of COVID-19 infections. India faces a tough balancing act between stimulating economic activity and curtailing a pandemic.

      India’s Vaccine Diplomacy

      During the pandemic, India has embarked on an ambitious foreign policy initiative. Modi announced the Vaccine Maitri initiative to supply COVID-19 vaccines to other nations only four days after India began domestic vaccinations. With the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, India has shipped approximately 61 million doses to 84 countries, which have included free batches. It has pledged 200 million doses for the WHO’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative to ensure vaccines for 92 low and middle-income countries.

      Embed from Getty Images

      India began its vaccine diplomacy by distributing doses to its immediate neighbors: Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The country has also exported vaccines to faraway places such as the Caribbean, where the likes of Barbados, Dominica and Jamaica have benefited from Indian aid. Leaders of countries such as Brazil and Antigua and Barbuda have publicly thanked Modi for his country’s generosity.

      As per some foreign policy experts, India’s vaccine distribution is a diplomatic masterstroke. It helps the country gain goodwill and increase its soft power. It could lead to a more peaceful neighborhood. In the future, India might win much support, strengthen its claim to a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and emerge as a great world power.

      Vaccine diplomacy might be giving a rare chance to counter China, which has launched the Belt and Road Initiative to increase its global footprint. For decades, China has backed Pakistan and, for the last few years, has increased its presence in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. With Chinese influence growing in India’s closest neighbors, the country has understandably become anxious.

      In June 2020, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a bloody hand-to-hand combat with many dying in the process. Since that clash, relations between India and China have been fraught. India has banned over 200 Chinese apps and restricted Chinese investment into the country. COVID-19 has given a unique opportunity to India — the “pharmacy of the world” — to compete with China. By shipping vaccines to low and middle-income countries, India is gaining influence at the Chinese expense whose vaccines have been questioned by Western media.

      Rich countries have failed poorer ones because they have focused on domestic programs. Unlike India, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom are focused completely on vaccinating their domestic populations. India’s generosity is unique and might lead to long-term gains.

      Masterstroke or Distraction?

      However, there is a counterargument that India has been premature in kicking off vaccine diplomacy. It did so before setting its own house in order. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, as of April 2, India has administered nearly 69 million doses, fully inoculating only 9.6 million people. That is just 0.71% of its population. India’s focus should have been getting every one of its citizens vaccinated instead of basking in complimentary tweets from foreign leaders. Such goodwill might turn out to be very transient. 

      Recently, India has slowed down its vaccine exports and speeded up its vaccination program. The government has now enrolled private hospitals in its vaccination drive, and everyone above the age of 45 is now eligible for the vaccine. Modi himself got vaccinated on March 1, boosting public faith in COVID-19 vaccines and increasing their uptake nearly four-fold. It seems that the government is paying attention to its critics.

      Time will tell whether India’s vaccine diplomacy was a bold masterstroke or an unwise distraction. It reveals that there are no easy choices for any nation during a raging pandemic.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Wealth Inequality Breeds Health Inequality

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      In an AP article last December, Maria Cheng and Aniruddha Ghosal noted that, despite official optimism concerning the capacity of emerging vaccines to provoke the definitive decline of the COVID-19 pandemic, “the chances that coronavirus shots will be shared fairly between rich nations and the rest are fading fast.” Their fears have been confirmed.

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      Natasha Frost at The New York Times reports on how wealth inequality has led to vaccine inequality, with the potentially disastrous effect of prolonging an already year-old global pandemic. She blames the various political establishments that have allowed this to happen. “It didn’t have to be like this,” she writes. “Western governments have resisted the call from global health officials to use rarely employed aggressive powers that could have forced companies to publish vaccine recipes, share their knowledge and ramp up manufacturing, in turn leading to broader vaccine access.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Aggressive powers:

      Special tools of government designed to address real, serious and urgent problems, sometimes mobilized to prosecute wars, but never employed to modify practices that might compromise the prospect of profit by private companies

      Contextual Note

      Military aggression (invasion, war, bombing campaigns) and economic aggression (sanctions, embargoes, boycotts) are the two policy instruments contemporary governments privilege to defend what they deem to be their “national interest.” Democratic nations continue to claim, against all evidence, that aggressive and fundamentally destructive actions taken against other peoples or nations — to kill, maim or simply create economic deprivation — are efficient means designed to protect their own people’s interest. Since commercial media never question this logic, discussion of what “national interest” implies never even enters the public’s field of awareness. War and sanctions sound virile and so must be good. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Whereas the English language has easily accepted “military aggression” and “economic aggression” as useful descriptive terms, the idea of “health aggression” has no place in anyone’s vocabulary. Health is not something the political infrastructure believes it can or should do anything “aggressive” about. It is both too personal and too profitable. In the US in particular, health is not considered to be something to strive for, but simply as a marketplace in which, as Cole Porter once said, anything goes (to make a profit).

      In an AP article by Cheng and Lori Hinnant that appeared earlier this month, the authors explain that the marketing policies of pharmaceutical companies are the source of what is quickly becoming a desperate situation for the majority of humankind. Companies “that took taxpayer money from the U.S. or Europe to develop inoculations at unprecedented speed say they are negotiating contracts and exclusive licensing deals with producers on a case-by-case basis because they need to protect their intellectual property and ensure safety.”

      Any rational human being with a basic understanding of language should be shocked by two words in the concluding phrase of that sentence. The first is “their.” The companies believe they exclusively own what a community built and paid for. Analyzing the logic of a supply chain and production line makes it clear that the areas they have invested in turn out to be testing, redesign, packaging and delivery. These are important features of any product. But they do not justify the claim of exclusive ownership.

      The second shocking term is “safety.” The firms deem themselves protectors of their customers’ “safety.” Their role in the process of combating the virus consists of refining the product and testing it to meet public safety standards. But the marketing attitude that guides their actions continues to privilege the idea of hoarding, seeking monopolistic advantage and exploiting scarcity in a marketplace. This poses a serious risk of undermining public safety and preventing the coordinated action that alone could lead to the elimination of a global pandemic.

      Historical Note

      During the discussions to fund the vaccines, the private companies selected for the honor of producing the vaccines destined to save the world in all probability declined to take on the burden without the assurance that the research would be fully funded and the intellectual property (IP) would be assigned to them as a guarantee of future profit. The politicians who accepted those terms were undoubtedly guided by the wisdom of the economics 101 course they attended decades ago in their youth that taught them how the focus on profit is the key to economic efficiency. The higher the profit, the greater the efficiency, they were told.

      In the past four decades, this logic has even been applied to the universities that offered those courses. They have become profit-focused institutions, dedicated to supporting the bloated salaries of the administration that “ensures” efficiency rather than the educational vocation of the institution.

      Today’s drama could stand as a model lesson for a future economics 101 course, though few would imagine that profit-driven universities will be very keen on the update. If the universities refuse, it should be taught in every high-school civics class on earth. Economics 101.1 would emphasize the perversity of an economic system that forces ordinary citizens in wealthy countries to finance through taxes the research that their government will then donate to private companies that, in turn, will inevitably claim the IP without ever investing a penny of their own money.

      This pattern of socializing private companies and endowing them with product lines that ensure massive future profits through monopolistic exploitation is not limited to the pharmaceutical sector. The giants of Silicon Valley have grown into mastodons who control not just their highly-profitable marketplace, but also people’s lives (their behavior) and minds (their thoughts), thanks to the same process.

      How did we get to this point? To answer that question would require an encyclopedia delving into questions of finance, technology, politics and culture. One obvious factor is the triumph of the idea of globalization that became an article of faith for all “serious thinkers” and most politicians in recent decades. Thomas Friedman famously summed it up with the idea that “the world is flat.” It turns out that when the only recognized motivator of any kind of action concerning human health and safety — or indeed anything else — is money and profit, any other of the needs we expect the economy to address become secondary. In classic economics, a situation of needs not being met will create the demand that a new enterprise will seek to fulfil.

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      Our pundits and economic thinkers imagine that, in a global economy, the process will be even more efficient because competition can come from any direction and supply chains can be easily reconfigured. In no time at all, the needs will be effectively and efficiently addressed. But the conditions for any new competitor to realize such a scenario require three largely unattainable conditions: extravagant funding to attain a scale of credible performance, recognition by public authorities (which often requires prior contributions to their political campaigns), and the belief in the possibility of a monopolistic position. 

      Guaranteed monopoly is the hardest to achieve for a newcomer, which is why over the past two decades, pundits have highlighted the necessity of disruptive innovation. This generally means focusing on a specific market opportunity rather than addressing a fundamental need. It also means that if the need is global, there is absolutely no chance of a newcomer having an impact. The major players are safe from new competition. Disruptive innovation is a wonderful way to spawn new gadgets or convenience products. Unfortunately, global societal needs require global societal reflection, research, coordination and concerted action.

      During the wars of the 20th century, democratic nations mobilized the “aggressive powers” provided by their laws to respond to the emergency of global conflict. This posed no challenge to the principles of democracy, where all shared the idea that such measures were required for the safety of the national population. War profiteering existed, since any intense effort creates new areas of economic opportunity, but governments were guided by the collective needs of the nation. They refused to allow policy to be dictated by the profiteers.

      With the first of what may become a series of pandemics converging with an impending global climate crisis, it might just be time for politicians to show their aggression by putting public safety ahead of private profit, even if it means revising the syllabus of economics 101.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      No decision yet on whether UK children will get Covid vaccine, says government adviser

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      No final decisions have been made on vaccinating children in the UK against Covid-19, a member of the government’s vaccine taskforce has said.It follows a report claiming that Boris Johnson’s government is considering a plan to begin giving Covid jabs to under-18s as early as August 2021.Professor Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said more studies would be needed before decisions are made about extending the rollout to children.Asked if under-18s could be vaccinated this autumn, Prof Finn told Good Morning Britain: “As far as I know there has been no decision made to immunise children starting in August, or indeed any decision been taken to immunise children at all at this point.”However, the University of Bristol expert said it could become necessary to vaccinate children later this year – and suggested teenagers would be the priority. “It’s certainly something that we might need to do,” he added.“If it does turn out to be necessary to immunise children, I think it is more likely that we would prioritise teenagers over younger children, simply because the evidence we have at the moment is that transmission of the virus is more likely to occur from and between teenagers who are a little bit more like adults.”The government is making provisional plans to begin immunising children as early as August, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, which cited two sources involved in preparations. More

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      in World Politics

      Why the US Return to the WHO Matters

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      In compliance with major statements made repeatedly during his electoral campaign, US President Joe Biden, on his first day in office on January 20, signed two important executive orders — among 15 others, a record number — signaling the United States’ return to the international arena, to global cooperation and multilateralism. One of these orders was for the United States to rejoin the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, and the other was to reestablish the country’s full membership and support to the World Health Organization (WHO).

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      Both acts were hugely symbolic, especially since they occurred within hours of Biden’s inauguration, as they set a fundamentally new tone in US foreign policy and sent a strong signal to the world, paraphrased as: We are back, count on us. But other than being symbolic, these acts constitute a material and substantial backing of global efforts to address two of the 21st century’s most severe world crises — the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change — under the aegis of the United Nations.

      When the Trump administration announced in July 2020, in the middle of the most devastating pandemic in at least a century, that the US would withdraw from the WHO — having already frozen payments of mandatory membership dues and thereby violating international law months earlier — that move was widely regarded as not only hugely counterproductive but as outright insane.

      The World Needs the US as Well

      Clearly, the country hit hardest by the pandemic — both in terms of total infections and deaths — is better off as a member of the very global community that ensures the fast sharing of research, data and best practices, coordinates responses, and comes together to devise evidence-based solutions to the world’s most pressing public health issues, be it malaria, tuberculosis, HIV or COVID-19. But the international community needs the US as well.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In fact, the US has been the single most important independent variable in international relations and global affairs since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of the Declaration of the United Nations on January 1, 1942. Hence, a WHO without the active participation and support of the US government is unthinkable. This engagement extends well beyond funding. Since its inception in 1948, the US has been the single largest contributor to the WHO — which budgeted $4.84 billion for the biennium 2020-21, not including COVID-19-related expenses — with a steady share of 22% of the organization’s assessed core budget and significant additional voluntary contributions made every single year.

      Yet the active support of medical research data, analysis, know-how, logistics, supplies and people power to the WHO’s multifold programs and emergency operations by the US, such as during the West African Ebola crisis of 2013-15, is priceless and virtually irreplaceable. Indeed, a great sense of relief was voiced in unison by scientists, senior government officials and UN leaders alike when the Biden administration applied common sense and restored the United States’ bond with the WHO on the day of its inception. This step will have an immediately relevant and measurable impact on the global response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

      With the unfreezing of previously withheld payments and the allocation of additional, fresh sums of money targeted at global health emergency relief efforts, research and development, and the provision of supplies and teams, the global fight against COVID-19 will experience an important boost. This will be particularly important in the context of WHO’s COVAX initiative, which is a historic, unprecedented fundraising effort to make effective and safe vaccines available to all countries, especially developing ones. Moreover, COVAX entails a proprietary vaccine development program, including the building of manufacturing capabilities, and provides technical and logistical support to countries in need.

      COVAX Initiative

      The new US administration has quickly become COVAX’s largest funder and pledged to donate surplus vaccine stocks in addition to its financial contributions. Also, efforts to assist developing countries by deploying on-the-ground technical assistance where needed are underway.

      However, COVAX still has a long way to go to meet its goal of buying supply so that 2 billion doses can be fairly and equitably distributed by the end of 2021. To date, financial support by OECD countries to the facility has been lukewarm at best, although the US and Germany stand out. The apparent lack of solidarity and tangible support by wealthy nations is disappointing and recently prompted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call global vaccine distribution “wildly uneven and unfair,” describing the goal of providing vaccines to all as “the biggest moral test before the global community.”

      In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic with its rapidly-emerging mutations and variants, quick, unequivocal and substantial support — both financial and technical — to developing countries and those behind in getting access to effective vaccines is not only a moral obligation for developed countries, but also a mere matter of rationality and self-interest.

      As long as over 100 countries globally have not even received a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, even the most ambitious and aggressive vaccine rollout campaigns in wealthy countries may be in vain as new variants of SARS-CoV-2 can emerge and cause new viral strains at any time. The Biden administration, along with other governments, is well advised to massively support multilateral solutions and collective action. It is the only reasonable, promising approach to tackling the world’s biggest crises in the 21st century.

      *[This article was submitted on behalf of the author by the Hamad bin Khalifa University Communications Directorate. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the university’s official stance.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in UK Politics

      Another Covid surge inevitable, Chris Whitty warns MPs

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      Another surge in coronavirus cases in the UK is inevitable and could come in late summer, despite the success of the country’s ongoing vaccine rollout, MPs have been told.Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said even under the most optimistic set of assumptions a further 30,000 lives could be lost to Covid-19, as he warned against the dangers of lifting restrictions too quickly.He said this was because not everyone in the UK will have been vaccinated or have full protection from the jabs as restrictions are eased, therefore allowing the virus to continue circulating among susceptible pockets of the population.”We hope it doesn’t happen soon, it might for example happen later in the summer if we open up gradually or because of the seasonal effect it might happen over the next autumn and winter,” Prof Whitty said. More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on women and the pandemic: what happened to building back better? | Editorial

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      One year into the pandemic, women have little cause to celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, and less energy to battle for change. Men are more likely to die from Covid-19. But women have suffered the greatest economic and social blows. They have taken the brunt of increased caregiving, have been more likely to lose their jobs and have seen a sharp rise in domestic abuse.In the UK, women did two-thirds of the extra childcare in the first lockdown, and were more likely to be furloughed. In the US, every one of the 140,000 jobs lost in December belonged to a woman: they saw 156,000 jobs disappear, while men gained 16,000. But white women actually made gains, while black and Latina women – disproportionately in jobs that offer no sick pay and little flexibility – lost out. Race, wealth, disability and migration status have all determined who is hit hardest. Previous experience suggests that the effects of health crises can be long-lasting: in Sierra Leone, over a year after Ebola broke out, 63% of men had returned to work but only 17% of women.The interruption to girls’ education is particularly alarming: Malala Fund research suggests that 20 million may never return to schooling. The United Nations Population Fund warns that there could be an extra 13 million child marriages over the next decade, and 7 million more unplanned pregnancies; both provision of and access to reproductive health services has been disrupted. In the US, Ohio and Texas exploited disease control measures to reduce access to abortions. The UN has described the surge in domestic violence which began in China and swept around the world as a “shadow pandemic”. Research has even suggested that the pandemic may lead to more restrictive ideas about gender roles, with uncertainty promoting conservatism.Coronavirus has not created inequality or misogyny. It has exacerbated them and laid them bare. Structural problems such as the pay gap, as well as gendered expectations, explain why women have taken on more of the extra caregiving. The pandemic’s radicalising effect has echoes of the #MeToo movement. Women knew the challenges they faced, but Covid has confronted them with unpalatable truths at both intimate and institutional levels.In doing so, it has created an opportunity to do better. Germany has given parents an extra 10 days paid leave to cover sickness or school and nursery closures, and single parents 20. Czech authorities have trained postal workers to identify potential signs of domestic abuse. But the deeper task is to rethink our flawed economies and find ways to reward work that is essential to us all. So far, there are precious few signs of building back better.Around 70% of health and social care workers globally are female, and they are concentrated in lower-paid, lower-status jobs. They deserve a decent wage. The 1% rise offered to NHS workers in the UK is an insult. The government also needs to bail out the childcare sector: without it, women will not return to work. It has not done equality impact assessments on key decisions – and it shows. The budget has admittedly earmarked £19m for tackling domestic violence, but Women’s Aid estimates that £393m is needed. And the UK is slashing international aid at a time when spending on services such as reproductive health is more essential than ever. Nonetheless, as a donor, it should at least press recipient governments to prioritise women in their recovery plans.Overworked and undervalued women have more awareness than ever of the need for change, and less capacity to press for it. Men too must play their part. Some have recognised more fully the demands of childcare and housework, and seen the potential benefits of greater involvement at home. Significant “use it or lose it” paternity leave might help to reset expectations both in families and the workplace. There were never easy solutions, and many look harder than ever. But the pandemic has shown that we can’t carry on like this. More

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      in UK Politics

      NHS pay rise: Nursing union sets up £35 million industrial action fund amid mounting anger

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      The RCN Council revealed it had voted voted unanimously last night in an emergency meeting to immediately set up a £35 million industrial action fund which will be used to support frontline nurses in the event they take strike action. Health unions responded angrily to the news and the chancellor Rishi Sunak was facing growing criticism over his failure to boost health or social care spending as he unveiled the Budget on Wednesday.“At that meeting, RCN Council voted unanimously for the RCN to immediately set up a £35 million industrial action fund.”It added: “A strike fund is an amount of money that can be used to support workers, who are members of a trade union, to provide some compensation for loss of earnings and campaigning during industrial action. More

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      in UK Politics

      Vaccine rate slowdown ‘to be expected,’ government and advisers insist

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      A slowdown in coronavirus vaccination rates is to be expected, officials have said, as the number of first doses administered dropped under 200,000 for two days in a row. Both a government minister and scientific adviser offered reassurance the figure would pick up again, following the recent dip to a level not seen since mid-January.When asked about concerns over the drop in daily vaccination rates, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said it was “very simple” to explain.“There are always going to be supply fluctuations. These are new vaccines, by and large the manufacturers have not made them or anything like them before,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.“The process of making a vaccine is one where, basically, you set the equipment up and leave it all to do its thing — a bit like beer-making really.“What you get at the end is not something that you can say is identical every time in terms of the yield, the amount of doses you can then make from that batch.”The deputy chief medical officer said it was “natural” to get variations in batch size because of this and it would take “a few months” before the manufacturers can get into a steady routine. There were also “global supply constraints”, he added.Prof Van-Tam said he was “confident in the long-term” the UK would meet its vaccination targets, and believed the “slowdown” seen in data from the last few days would “suddenly pick up again”.Around 141,000 people in the UK received their first dose of a coronavirus jab on 21 February, followed by 192,000 did on 22 February. The figure had been over 200,000 for weeks.More than 300,000 people were vaccinated every day between 16 and 20 February.The last time the daily vaccination figure previously dipped below 200,000 was on 17 January, when around 191,000 people in the UK received their first dose, according to government data. A government minister said he understood “people will raise concerns” but insisted there were no issues in the supply chain.“There is no problem in terms of flow of vaccines,” Gavin Williamson told radio station LBC on Wednesday, when asked about concerns.“We will be hitting incredibly high numbers. The prime minister has already made it clear we will be hitting all the adult population in record speed.”The government has said every adult in the UK will be offered a vaccine by the end of July in an acceleration of the rollout.Speaking about recent daily rates, Mr Williamson told LBC: “There will always be some days where it dips lower.” The education secretary added: “I have every confidence it will be rebounding back very shortly.”More than 17.9 million people in the UK had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine as of Monday, according to government data, while over 642,000 had received their second. More