A coronavirus vaccine would be a triumph, but the worst human impulses threaten its success | Polly Toynbee

The combination of anti-vaxxers on the march and a government with woeful health messaging could be lethal for Britain

The world has moved a step closer to ending the Covid-19 horror as researchers from Oxford University, among the 200 global teams working on vaccines, published promising results in The Lancet. The UK has already ordered 90m doses, in breath-holding hope.

A vaccine would mark another feat of astonishing human brilliance. But expect the usual human bad behaviour too. Vaccine researchers pledge to make them available to all as cheaply as possible, but we should brace ourselves for nationalists everywhere to fight for their country first, just as Donald Trump plundered other countries' personal protective equipment and tried to corner the market in remdesivir. Countries agreed a framework from the World Health Organization (WHO) to share all vaccine information, but few expect an orderly queue: calls for solidarity and cooperation risk being swept away by those with the sharpest elbows, deepest pockets and crookedest swindling.