Johnson is betting everything on the vaccine – we'd better hope it works | Larry Elliot
Vaccinations are key to Britain's economic recovery. But the government's repeated failures suggest this won't be simple
It says something about the current state of Britain that the economy has become a sideshow. At any other time, the prospect of a double-dip recession would be front-page news, but it is now merely a footnote to daily bulletins charting infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths.
For the past year there has been a debate about whether lockdowns are worth the pain, once all the collateral damage - the cancelled cancer operations, the lost months of schooling for children who can ill afford it, the increased incidence of domestic abuse and mental health problems, the lengthening dole queues - is taken into account.
Supermarkets' logistics stopped Britain running out of food. The government could use them to distribute vaccines
Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor
This article was updated on 7 January 2021 to clarify that there is currently a junior minister responsible for the vaccination programme.