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.

What would Jenner think now as the winter flu season approaches? Last year fewer than half of frontline NHS staff in England were vaccinated, with only one in 10 trusts reaching the (very low) NHS target of 60% protected against flu. Healthcare workers have a high risk of catching flu, spreading it to vulnerable people and to their own families, and taking sick days when they are most needed. These people are trained in science, steeped in evidence of the extraordinary value of vaccines, and yet many are reluctant. Doctors were the staff group that scored the highest, but still only half of them got vaccinated – half! – instead of influencing the public towards protection.

Overall, healthcare workers in GP practices........

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