Can boosterish Boris win over the Doubting Thomases of the Tory party?

May I beg the indulgence of readers who are familiar with the story of Doubting Thomas, for the sake of those who are not? It is to be found in St John’s Gospel, 20: 24-29 and is one of the most memorable passages in the whole New Testament. Thomas refused to believe that Jesus had returned from the dead and shown himself to the other disciples. He demanded physical proof. And so when Jesus next appeared to the twelve, he said to Thomas: “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

The words with which Jesus then replied have resonated down the ages. “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” With sublime economy, this text epitomises the difference between those who will never believe anything until the evidence is before their eyes, and those who are prepared to go beyond it. This distinction between sceptics and believers is not the same as that between a scientific world view and a religious one. From Newton to Einstein, scientists have often made what Blaise Pascal (himself one of the greatest of mathematicians) called the leap of faith, predicting theories for which the proof is still lacking. Sometimes they are mistaken, but without the ability to transcend the limits of empirical knowledge, progress is impossible.

This is the problem we have repeatedly encountered in dealing with the Covid pandemic. All our instincts tell us to be sceptical of mere “modelling” and to resist the measures that the Government bases on them. At every stage conventional wisdom has doubted the credibility of the worst-case scenarios, ignoring the fact that these are indeed one end of a spectrum of possibilities. When, thanks in part to prophylactic measures, the worst does not happen, this fact is used to cast doubt on the epidemiological framework, the “science”, on which the whole strategy rests. For those who take this line of thought to extremes, even the efficacy and necessity of vaccination — one of the most tried and tested forms of medical intervention that exists — is cast into doubt. So far, Covid deaths in the UK number 146,000; without the vaccines, perhaps twice as many people would have died. But proving a negative is hard, perhaps impossible.

And so we come to the Prime Minister’s broadcast on Sunday evening. He is correct that the Omicron variant will bring with it a huge new “tidal wave” of Covid cases, with the potential to overwhelm the NHS. He is absolutely right to accelerate the booster campaign, with the aim of offering the jab to the entire adult population by the end of the month. This requires a doubling of the rate of vaccination to a million a day. This will be extremely difficult, but the PM is again right to demand nothing less. Indeed, I called for precisely this scaling up here a fortnight ago, when there were still 25 million people to be boosted. On November 30th, I wrote: “Provided that sufficient supplies of vaccines are available, a target of a million jabs a day is not impossible.”

What will be the reaction to this call to put jabs in arms? Many will be sceptical because the announcement came from Boris Johnson. The desire to shoot this particular messenger may be understandable, but it is completely misguided. We need this Plan C in order to avoid the worst case scenario in which another 75,000 people die over the next few weeks. In fact, it is already clear that the Plan B measures that were put in place to slow down the spread of the new wave of Covid caused by Omicron were not enough. Even if the new variant proves to be milder than Delta, its impact on the population without the booster will lead to “very many deaths”.

Yet the Doubting Thomases of the Tory party are determined to vote against the Plan B provision which requires those who attend large events or nightclubs to show a negative test or proof of vaccination — the so-called “vaccine passports” that have been so demonised in the media. Nearly 70 MPs say they will rebel tomorrow, meaning that the Government will have to rely on Labour to get the measure through.

Sir Keir Starmer says that he is “not supporting the Prime Minister on Tuesday. I’m supporting our NHS.” But in reality this is a crunch moment for both leaders. For Starmer it is easier: he knows that the public would be dismayed if Labour sought to exploit Tory splits by opposing a measure that he has hitherto supported. But if Boris Johnson says that he is putting the country before his party, he risks permanently alienating the MPs he needs to survive if, as may well happen, the Conservatives are trounced by the Liberal Democrats in the North Shropshire by-election on Thursday.

The Tory Doubting Thomases will lose the vote, but they do not need to persuade very many people that the Government has overreacted to the Omicron variant for the entire policy to be derailed. If a large section of society defies the legal requirement to wear masks in many public places, to take tests and above all to get boosted, the knock-on effect on the rest of us will be huge. Not only will tens of thousands more die of Covid, but many more thousands will die from other conditions because NHS won’t have the capacity to treat them. Without the accelerated booster programme, the new wave could reach 500,000 cases a day, implying more than the 4,000 daily hospitalisations that we saw at the previous peak last January. Instead of the 6,000-9,000 Covid patients that have been hospital at any one time in recent months, we could soon easily have as many as the 28,000 we saw last winter, or even more. There are only about 100,000 beds available across the entire health service, most of which are occupied by non-Covid patients. In parts of London, nearly half of the age groups now being invited to come forward for boosters, those in their twenties and thirties, have not been vaccinated at all. For them, it is too late to get the booster — though they should get their first vaccination anyway to gain at least some protection. But there is no prospect of an end to the pandemic as long as a significant proportion of the population simply refuses to believe that it is in danger.

The Covid sceptics are going nowhere. Doubt, like faith, is a facet of human nature — and it is often an invaluable one. But in our present predicament, the doubters’ refusal to entertain the possibility that they could be endangering themselves and others is a huge problem. Having appealed to the nation on television, Boris Johnson now needs to appeal to his party in Parliament. He needs the eloquence of Oliver Cromwell, who famously wrote to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you are mistaken.” If anyone alive has it in them to sway the Doubting Thomases of the Tory party, it is the man who won them two London mayoral elections, the Brexit referendum and the 2019 general election. Boris has had a torrid time of it lately, but if he can rise to the occasion, this week could be his finest hour.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.