UK vaccine effect
The United Kingdom has nailed its vaccine rollout, with 34½ million people already having received at least one dose, and following a big swing to second doses in April some 15 million have now had a second dose too.
It's been a tremendous collective effort.
NHS England reported only three COVID-19 deaths today, over two dates, showing how effective these vaccines have been against the virus.
With about 28 million tests being carried out per month, statistically it will be nigh on impossible for deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID test to reach zero, but things are not far off that level now, and weekly deaths are still down by more than 30 per cent week-on-week.
Looking at deaths by date of occurrence, the daily numbers will jag around a bit now we're into single digit territory, but the new is very positive.
Moreover, total deaths have been tracking below the 5-year average for about six weeks now, so the pandemic phase is long since over.
The median age of death with COVID in the UK has been 83, and the good news is that the hospitals have continued to empty out apace.
And there are now very few serious cases for a population of around 68 million, so ventilator equipment is being shipped off to India where there is a far more pressing need for it.
This dramatic vaccine impact shouldn't be too much of a surprise - Israel led the way with vaccinations, and has seen the country's positivity rate fall to just 0.1 per cent, and virus deaths have essentially ceased.
Europe plays catch-up
Brits are now looking forward to a glorious summer and are busy booking their summer holidays in Europe (as are Americans), especially in those destination countries where the COVID threat is fading.
Continental Europe was slower off the immunisation mark than the United Kingdom, but things are ramping up now, and Germany has crunched through nearly 15 million doses over the past month alone.
We saw last year that the warmer summer weather effectively suppressed the virus in Europe, and since we have vaccines this time around one might expect the end to be in sight by the end of this month for Greece, Portugal, and a range of other countries.
Australia laggard
Moving on to Australia, I think we're all quite bored of reading about the politics of COVID now.
As the political dithering on quarantine and statewide lockdowns for single positive tests wear on, the simplest solution simply appears to be getting on with the blasted vaccine programme.
Only 2¼ million doses have been administered to date, and the rollout has been steady rather than spectacular to say the least.
Vaccinated Europeans and Americans will soon be travelling for business and leisure again, so Australia needs to crack on with vaccinating its vulnerable so it can become outward facing once more.
Experience from elsewhere in the world appears to show that a turning point is reached once 40 to 60 per cent of the population has received a vaccine dose, and reopening can happen while the virus remains in decline.
That implies that Australia may need to vaccinate 10 to 15 million people before such a level of immunity is reached.
As for the threat of jail for Aussies returning home from India - what a disgrace, and a clear contradiction of what is stated on the passport.
In summary, get on with it.
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As an interesting aside, scanning the coronavirus updates on the Worldometers website, it's notable that the global population continues to accelerate towards 8 billion, up from 6 billion in 2000, and only 4 billion in 1974.
More than 3 million people have been reported as dying with COVID since the pandemic began, but at the global level this will be tiny blip on the inexorable rise to 8 billion.
Mortality rates have improved dramatically over the past few decades, which paradoxically means there are more elderly persons within the virus risk categories.
