Aim The aim of the paper is to enhance understanding of how members of the public make sense of the Covid-19 vaccines and to understand the factors influencing their attitudes towards such artefacts of pandemic governance. Methods The paper draws on 23 online in-depth interviews with members of the UK public and builds on relevant literature to examine participants’ perceptions of the benefits and risks of Covid-19 vaccines, the sources that have shaped their attitudes, and the level of trust they have towards the government’s handling of the pandemic through vaccines. Results The findings indicate that participants generally felt that the benefits of having the vaccine outweigh the risks and that Covid-19 vaccines are a crucial mechanism for enabling society to return to normal. Vaccine acceptance was, for some, strongly linked to a sense of social responsibility and the duty to protect others. However, some participants expressed concerns with regard to the side-effects of Covid-19 vaccines and their perceived potential impact on fertility and DNA makeup. Participants used various sources of information to learn about Covid-19 vaccines and understand their function, benefits, and risks. The majority of participants criticised the government’s response during the early stages of the pandemic yet felt positive about the vaccine rollout. Conclusion Just as with any other vaccination programme, the success of the Covid-19 immunisation campaigns does not only depend on the efficacy of the vaccines themselves or the ability to secure access to them, but also on a myriad of other factors which include public compliance and trust in governments and health authorities. To support an effective immunisation campaign that is capable of bringing the pandemic to an end, governments need to understand public concerns, garner trust, and devise adequate strategies for engaging the public and building more resilient societies.

Vascular Endothelial Cells (EC) plasticity is key to homeostasis and its disruption is a hallmark of diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, and diabetes. The EC lineage has evolved to address in parallel sensor and actuator functions. This ability is reflected in remarkable phenotypical heterogeneity of EC across different tissues, within the same tissue, and within the same vascular bed as demonstrated by single cell image analysis and transcriptomics studies. However, how the molecular signalling dynamics in EC could generate and maintain such heterogeneity in different contexts is still largely unexplored. Recently we reported that confluent EC have spatially heterogeneous NOTCH signalling pathway (NSP) levels in vitro as confirmed from analysis of available OMICS databases. Here, we show that spatial heterogeneity of NSP levels is a feature of aortic murine endothelia in vivo and recapitulated by human EC in culture despite absence of signalling from mural cells. We study lateral induction and inhibition, cis-interactions and signalling, and target genes autoregulation in NSP. Using mathematical models and experimental observations we report that NSP dynamics can generate stable, periodic, and asynchronous oscillations of the NSP target HES1. Importantly, we observe that cell contact dependent NSP signal oscillations is the most likely parsimonious mechanistic hypothesis justifying observed spatial heterogeneity in endothelia. We propose that NSP is sufficient to enable individual EC in monolayers to acquire different phenotypes dynamically explaining robustness of quiescent endothelia in performing parallel functions.

In response to the global outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, many countries around the world have rushed to develop and implement various mechanisms, including vaccination passports, to contain the spread of the virus and manage its significant impact on heath and society. COVID-19 passports have been promoted as a way of speeding society’s return to ‘normal’ life while protecting public health and safety. These passports, however, are not without controversy. Various concerns have been raised with regard to their social and ethical implications. Framing the discussion within the ‘risk society’ thesis and drawing on an interview-based study with members of the UK public as well as the relevant literature, this article examines perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine passports. The findings of the study indicate that participants’ attitudes toward vaccine passports are primarily driven by factors relating to perceptions of risk. While some considered vaccine passports as a positive strategy to encourage vaccine uptake and facilitate travel and daily activities, others saw this mechanism as a coercive step that might alienate further those who are already vaccine hesitant. Issues of fairness, equity, discrimination, trust, and data security were major themes in participants’ narratives and their subjective assessment of vaccine passports.