When fewer than half of health service workers have taken up the flu vaccine, there is little hope for the rest of us

Good news. Edward Jenner’s rustic thatched hut in his Gloucestershire garden where he conducted his first smallpox vaccination in 1796 has just been saved by English Heritage. Here Jenner gave free vaccinations every week to local people. Here he became the single human being to save more lives than any other person who has ever lived.

This triumph of the age of enlightenment, at a time when a third of children died before adulthood, is too easily forgotten. But enlightenment itself has been in retreat, with Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s health secretary, leading the vanguard of unreason, dismantling vaccination programmes and stirring vaccine conspiracy and paranoia around the world. His infectious messaging has contributed to falling vaccination rates in rich as well as poor countries. Here’s hoping this week is the end of that Trumpian rolling back of reason.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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