Gabriella Peralta
With a cold pint in hand, Robin Batchelor did something still alien to many of his fellow Brits: toasted with his friends in an open pub.
“Having had our vaccines, we now have a sense of freedom,” said the 30-year-old as he took a sip under the setting Gibraltar sun.
A massive vaccine rollout campaign means Gibraltar is the first nation in the world that will have its adult population fully protected against Covid-19.
Slowly, life on the Rock is beginning to return to a semblance of normality — weeks ahead of the UK mainland.
Gibraltar locked down earlier this year after a spike in virus cases left 94 people dead, its worst loss of life in a century and a devastating blow for this small, close-knit community,
Sitting at Little Rock Café in Casemates Square on Friday, Thomas Johnson, 31, and Stefan Ramagge, 31, said it felt liberating to be out and about again.
For Margot Charvetto, 24, life after vaccination has meant edging cautiously back to routine.
“It’s been unusual readjusting to something we haven’t had in a year,” she said.
Slowly, life on the Rock is beginning to return to a semblance of normality
The route out of lockdown is being carefully managed here.
Bars and restaurants are open but have to operate with restrictions on capacity to ensure social distancing.
Masks remain compulsory in busy public spaces, there are limits on public gatherings and a night-time curfew is still in place.
But the vaccination programme, supported by the UK Government which has delivered free doses to Gibraltar and other Overseas Territories, has helped to rebuild confidence.
The vaccination programme began in early January, just when the Rock was at the peak of a surge in cases after the Christmas holidays.
In the weeks since, Gibraltar received six batches of the Covid-19 vaccines delivered on RAF flights and totalling some 64,000 doses. When the jab was offered to adults, very few turned it down.
There are 34,000 people living on the Rock and already, 21,000 adults have received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, with another 8,000 due to receive their second jabs within days.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock praised Gibraltar’s rollout in the Commons this week after the Rock’s Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, said the UK had “played a blinder” with its vaccination drive.
With its adult population vaccinated, Gibraltar is now a petri dish for how communities around the globe might ease out of lockdown restrictions.
Mr Picardo told reporters this week that Gibraltar’s health authorities will be sharing “hugely important” vaccine data and research with the UK.
Bars and restaurants are open but have to operate with restrictions on capacity to ensure social distancing
Gibraltar’s border with Spain remains fluid for both cross-border workers and residents on either side.
About 15,000 people who live in Spain cross daily into Gibraltar to work and many, including those in frontline healthcare posts, have been vaccinated here too.
Spain’s vaccination programme is lagging way behind, along with the rest of Europe. The adult population is unlikely to be fully vaccinated until September.
In Gibraltar at least five people who had received the vaccine have since caught Covid-19.
But the hope is that the jab, coupled to measures including social distancing and masks, will help keep new infections and hospitalisations down.
“That will be very interesting data and Gibraltar will be one of the places which will first be able to inform the world about the whole population vaccination programme and what it produces going forward,” Mr Picardo said.
For now though, “caution must remain our watchword and prudence must define our approach,” he added.
“The sun is shining and we are all now vaccinated or on the way to being vaccinated.”
“But we are not out of the woods yet.”
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