The Guardian view on the vaccine rollout: the state we're in | Editorial

Making mistakes, as Boris Johnson and the EU have discovered, is a precondition for ongoing success

Britain's Covid-19 vaccine success contains an important lesson for the rest of the world: a pandemic is no place for the rigid application of free-market principles. Boris Johnson has got many things wrong in the past year, but his decision to mobilise the Keynesian state has saved lives. Faced with deadly coronavirus, Mr Johnson followed in the slipstream of the US to fund, develop and produce vaccines through centralised bureaucracy.

The UK government helped to pump-prime the industry by buying large quantities of untested technologies months before almost anyone else. While others worried about where the potential liabilities would lie, Mr Johnson said the UK state would bear the risks. His administration was content for regulators to fast-track Covid vaccine approvals. A combination of strong planning, a willingness to spend and the centralised NHS structure has put vaccines into people's arms at world-beating rates.