VACCINATION logistics and children’s welfare in question were the issues debated by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Express

Ann Widdecombe questioned why 30,000 NHS volunteers had not yet been mobilised to help deploy the vaccine.

“The PM has ordered a review of the ludicrous bureaucracy which means that temporarily returning NHS workers, including doctors, are supposed to fill in umpteen forms proving they are trained in everything from fire safety to diversity,” she said. “He doesn’t need a review but should simply issue a command that all volunteers need to be able to give jabs is proof of where and in what capacity they last worked in the NHS and that should be all that needs checking. It isn’t rocket science.”

She said it was simple common sense that we needed to get ‘as much immunity into the population in the shortest space of time.’

The Guardian

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security. and Ilan Schwartz, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of Alberta, said the argument that a second dose of an mRNA vaccine could be delayed was not supported by the science.

“There is a significant risk that a single shot would be inadequate, particularly for elderly people, the group most in need of protection,” they said. “It is well-known that age diminishes the duration and magnitude of immune responses, and we cannot gamble the safety of the most vulnerable based on an intriguing preliminary result.”

They said the development of the vaccines in record time was a true triumph of modern science.

“We must not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by administering vaccines in any way besides that for which they were carefully evaluated.”

The Daily Mail

Sarah Vine said it was clear children were becoming third class citizens in the pandemic.

“ Their education, their rights, future and wellbeing — not to mention their mental health — during this pandemic have been treated as if secondary to everyone else’s,” she said. “The point is that you cannot just put children’s dreams on hold. No one gets a second childhood. No one gets to be 15 or 17 again; once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

She said for many children the prospect of making up ground lost in online learning with exams was a glimmer of hope.

“Take that away, and what’s the point in getting out of bed in the mornings? As the daughter of one friend said to me: ‘It’s like no one cares any more’,” she added.

“We simply can’t keep shutting down schools — or society in general — indefinitely. We must strain every sinew and explore every possibility to get schools open, and keep them that way.”