Covid-19: The slow march to reopening and how the world is faring

As the countries that have achieved the highest levels of vaccine coverage – including Israel, Canada, Chile, Britain and the US – take their first tentative steps into a world of reduced restrictions, the results have been varied

An audience gathers for a pop-up event in Times Square in New York last week. Many Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted there and it is planned that remaining measures will be stepped down once 70 per cent vaccination is achieved. Picture: Getty

When it comes to vaccine rollout programmes, some countries are performing well, but the path to effectively reopening economies and societies after nearly one-and-a-half years of a global pandemic is not straightforward.

The tentative reopening of countries around the world as they reach varying thresholds of vaccine coverage is, in reality, a grand experiment.

Like many things in this pandemic, finding the right balance between increasing vaccinations and decreasing restrictions has never been tested before.