Menhirs, Carvings, Cup and Ring

Not a good day for Dominic Cummings. Boris Johnson finally gave his chief advisor the push. He wouldn’t go quietly.

The cycle of seasons, hopes, dreams and losses in our lives certainly gave Shakespeare endless scope. They gave Joni Mitchell, the hugely successful, lyrical, late 1960s-70s songwriter huge scope too. I thought often of her hauntingly pure, tight rope voice singing The Circle Game during Covid. These melancholic lyrics seemed to fit with the sadness & disappointments that the virus was highlighting so clearly.

Even before the UK locked down in March 2020, an extraordinary pharmaceutical race was gathering momentum among scientific specialists to create a vaccine to protect against the virus. Pharmaceutical companies pushed for partnerships internationally to get ahead and this led to bruising negotiations with the US and Europe, leading to the UK going it alone with vaccine production.

Oxford university’s Jenner Institute together with Swedish British Astra Zeneca company initiated the ‘find a vaccine’ race in the UK. But it was Pfizer-BioNtech that led the biggest vaccination programme in NHS history on 8th December 2020.