Ever the perennial optimists, Mixmag recently posted this article about the Covid vaccination programme. It’s running ahead of schedule and they’re hoping that will work in favour of nightclubs in England reopening.

As it happens, I actually had my first jab last week. My wife got a phone call last Tuesday from her GP surgery about it. As I’m her carer, I’m also entitled to receive it, so we both got ours done on Wednesday. We both felt rough as anything afterwards – headaches and chills aplenty – but we’re fine now.

Anyway, I posted yesterday that I was less confident about this, pointing to the fact the furlough scheme has been extended to 30th September. I’m still of the same position at the moment, but I happen to agree that the vaccine programme is essential. As Andrew Neil said on Good Morning Britain the other day, “the government’s vaccine policy is its economic policy”.

I can’t help but think something has changed within the British government lately. They made a hell of a lot of mistakes during the pandemic – pushing herd immunity at the start, PPE shortages on the frontline, reopening society too early, failing to prepare for a jump in test demand when schools reopened in September, the ridiculous idea we could all mix at Christmas which they dropped when they realised the disaster that was unfolding. Need I go on?

With the vaccine programme, they’ve shown an incredibly rare display of competence. It feels to me that in regards to nightclubs, the government is increasingly hedging its bets.

Realistically, if nightclubs reopen in June and the youngest haven’t been inoculated, cases are going to rise. Hence why the government is so keen to keep the vaccine programme going full steam ahead.

I think it’ll be August before many are open again, reading the situation.