Graphs and charts from Our World in Data copied into essay 339.
Left, vaccination goes at pace in some places. One might ask questions about uptake, about reasons for not being vaccinated, incentives that states think are effective (and reasons for these). One might ask about levels of herd immunity, about global immunity possibilities. One might ask about variants, which is directly related to the volume and density of cases - where case density is very high, variants will be created and, because of the local medical pressure, all the more likely to escape into the wider community.
Cases per million on a log scale above shows the UK's green list countries (no need to quarantine on return), with the gap at 50-100 cases per million, such that Portugal and Malta are OK but the US is amber. Several of these had large peaks recently with the period since December shown here.
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Government, having caused us to comply with restriction by passing laws throughout 2020, now wants to change this position to us taking responsibility for ourselves. While one might laud that (I've been asking for it for ages), the media call this 'creating confusion'. E.g. We have red, amber and green lists of countries, indicating the rules that apply to whether or not you must quarantine on return. That has no connection with whether one can enter that country or must quarantine on arrival overseas. But at the very same time ministers are making it quite clear that while you could go on holiday abroad, they collectively feel that you should not. Of course, being politicians, you generally feel they're saying the words but thinking something completely different. The ones I believe are the ones that point out where they are intending to holiday (in Britain) this year. But, because we've been taught to react to restriction and to push the boundaries absolutely as hard as we can get away with [more Cummings' Effect], that is going to be largely ignored and so the coloured list is seen as a green light for jolly hollys, especially in Portugal, which is on the green list and welcoming visitors from here.
Those of us able to make up our own minds will being having staycations, which means staying within the UK, not staying at home in town. The even more sensible will be still maintaining distance from strangers, but it is all a matter of perceived risk. Repeating, there are two risks to consider; that where you contract the virus and that where you spread the virus. We are gaining better understanding of the protection levels that the vaccines give us but we are frequently told that this figure is not 100%, even though it is 'very good'. There are people in hospital with covid who have had both jabs. We have new variants rushing around displacing other virus variants and we seem to have accepted a long time ago that a level of prevalence is acceptable, even when that level is high. Yet we still have a lot of the 19-40 cohort completely unvaccinated and these are the very same people most shown clamouring for 'freedom'. That might just be media bias or perception and not true at all, but it is the shouters that are heard in this society.