European vaccine rollout
There's no doubt that the cold European winter has been tough, with huge waves of the COVID-19 virus sweeping across most countries.
As I've painstakingly chronicled each day on Twitter, the United Kingdom has absolutely aced its vaccine rollout - with 32 million persons having received at least one vaccine dose and the rollout switching focus to second doses - to the extent that deaths within 28 days of a positive test (itself a woolly measure at the best of times) have fallen by 98 per cent since peaking in January.
Better still the vaccines seem to be tremendously effective at stopping serious illness and the spread of the virus, with UK hospital admissions also falling by more than 95 per cent, and cases totally collapsing.
It's been a different story on the continent, where the initial rollout of vaccine doses was bungled.
The good news is that - finally - countries across Europe are beginning to hit their straps, with Germany punching through nearly 1.4 million doses in a 48-hour period this week.
Several European countries aren't too far behind (in fact many are ahead of Germany in terms of the percentage of the population vaccinated).
All of the countries in the chart above will soon pass 20 per cent of the total population vaccinated, and if the experiences of Israel and the UK are mirrored then deaths with COVID-19 will also soon plummet.
Indeed since serious virus cases tend to skew heavily to the elderly, and as the weather warms up, we are probably into the home straight for most European countries, even though it may not feel like it today.
The warmer climes may already be righting themselves.
