Covid-19: now the next battle, against antivaxer virus of mistrust

The scientists have done their bit, developing at least three highly plausible coronavirus vaccines in nine months, where once the work would have taken a decade.

Now the world’s governments have to administer them. This will require some remarkable feats of organisation and logistics, but it will also depend on solving a problem that has bedevilled vaccination throughout its history: mistrust.

Surveys suggest that substantial numbers of people in many countries are reluctant or even determined not to have themselves inoculated. In some, this contingent of the unwilling could be big enough to undermine herd immunity.

This is partly down to the strength and dogmatism of a global antivaxer movement pumped up with lies, misinterpreted scientific evidence and wild conspiracy theories. The rise of

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