Vax Vacation

So, the dilemma among the chattering classes this week is whether or not to pre-book a Summer holiday now, in order to get somewhere decent, or not. Since we're supposed to be releasing all lock-down restrictions on June 21st then is it reasonable to think that booking a holiday for July should be OK? Of course doing that is making the bet that everything will go according to plan, something that hasn't happened so far for pretty much anything apart from the vaccination program, which seems to be just about on track. There are a number of risks that need to be assessed, these include,

• Virus variant emerges and escapes the vaccine (putting us back to square one)
• Vaccine supply is interrupted or reduced somehow
• Vaccine efficacy isn't as high as we thought, or transmission continues at a high rate
• Antivaxxers are sufficiently numerous to prevent herd immunity
• Immunity window for vaccines is much shorter than we thought

My own view (merely unscientific speculation) is that the first of these risks is the biggest and most likely, I think the vaccines are proving to be reliable and effective but only time will tell on the question of duration of immunity, if it's as predicted then the current rounds of vaccines should cover us until the end of the year at least, so holidays in July/August are indeed feasible. Probably the safest thing to do is a "staycation" in the UK, but the choices are becoming increasingly limited as I think lots of people are reaching this same conclusion. So now might just be the time to snap up a deal, but, whatever happens, I think additional insurance is essential, covering refunds etc., Although clearly premiums are going to be on the high side this year, then again, I guess you don't win the prize unless you buy a ticket so probably time to get into AirBnB mode..