I vaguely recall Ministers trying to blame the growth of Covid in the south-east in late 2020 on regional differences in compliance with the rules - without, as far as I know, any evidence that there were such differences. And the December 2020 "reopening" is all the more bewildering to me in retrospect, as the government must have known by then that things were looking good as far as vaccines were concerned.
Yes, that partial reopening but putting some areas into high tiers was kind of odd. I think to some extent it was guided by party management issues - there was quite a big Tory rebellion in the Commons (particularly from Kent MPs) and Labour abstained https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/johnson-suffers-biggest-commons-revolt-as-mps-back-tougher-covid-tiers I don't know if it was ever a runner to put Kent into Tier 4 (not that that even existed as a concept then, I think).
And you're right about vaccines - we had the trial data by then (for both Pfizer and AZ). So while I'm in general somewhat sympathetic to the idea that "lockdowns only delay infections not prevent them", I think that was the prime occasion when that rationale didn't hold up, because in a month or two so many people could have been protected against the worst outcomes.
I vaguely recall Ministers trying to blame the growth of Covid in the south-east in late 2020 on regional differences in compliance with the rules - without, as far as I know, any evidence that there were such differences. And the December 2020 "reopening" is all the more bewildering to me in retrospect, as the government must have known by then that things were looking good as far as vaccines were concerned.
Yes, that partial reopening but putting some areas into high tiers was kind of odd. I think to some extent it was guided by party management issues - there was quite a big Tory rebellion in the Commons (particularly from Kent MPs) and Labour abstained https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/johnson-suffers-biggest-commons-revolt-as-mps-back-tougher-covid-tiers I don't know if it was ever a runner to put Kent into Tier 4 (not that that even existed as a concept then, I think).
And you're right about vaccines - we had the trial data by then (for both Pfizer and AZ). So while I'm in general somewhat sympathetic to the idea that "lockdowns only delay infections not prevent them", I think that was the prime occasion when that rationale didn't hold up, because in a month or two so many people could have been protected against the worst outcomes.