Two days before Christmas, the owner of a small family nursing home forwarded an email to this newspaper with a document he had been desperately waiting for. It was a Covid-19 vaccination schedule for nursing homes, listing the dates they could expect residents and staff to be immunised. The start date was January 11, but his nursing home was scheduled for the end of the month. "We can't wait four weeks," he said on the phone. "We've managed to keep the virus away from our residents and out of this home all year. We're at the end of our tether here."