Johnson’s Biggest Risk Yet

COVID has disappeared. It has given up trying to infect us, put on its coat, and left the United Kingdom. Or that’s what government policy would have you believe. On July 19^th, we are going back to normality. The government earlier this week announced that freedom day would go ahead, and Britain would ‘learn to live with the virus’. Clubs, casinos, large events, and festivals have been given the green light, masks will no longer be mandatory – although premises can enforce them, the one metre rule is abandoned, and there will be no restrictions on sports events.

This is, quite frankly, terrible timing, and a big risk. Cases are currently soaring due to the arrival of the Delta variant earlier in the year, with numbers reaching the same levels as January. Hospitalisation numbers and deaths are now starting to rise too, although not the extent of previous waves thanks to the incredible vaccine rollout, which is proving to be effective against all current variants. We are seeing record numbers of people isolating from track and trace, and an increasing number of children learning from home due to breakouts of the virus at schools.

The government is forecasting record case numbers over the next few weeks, but says it is necessary to live with the virus going forwards in the same way we do with flu. But we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t the flu. The mortality rate is much higher, and there’s also long covid, something we don’t even know the full extent of yet, and the toll it takes on our bodies. We also can’t forget the groups of people who couldn’t have the vaccine for various reasons – and will be put at risk.   

This problem is Boris Johnson’s own doing. His dithering and delaying closing the border to travellers from India brought in the Delta variant, and his constant need to be the man with the good news is again putting the country at risk. If we had closed the border when called for, we could unlock now with cases still low, and minimal deaths. His other mistake was setting arbitrary dates for unlocking, something he’s already paid for once by delaying freedom day from last month.

The biggest uproar has been against the removal of mandatory mask wearing in indoor spaces and public transport. The government are giving into the small minority of ant-mask cretins, while the vast majority still want them in place. According to YouGov 66% of respondents believe that face masks should continue to be mandatory in shops and enclosed public places, and 71% believe they should continue on public transport. This tallies with polling earlier in the year where almost two thirds said they would continue to wear masks after restrictions are lifted, and over two thirds would continue to social distance.

It’s no doubt that this is Boris Johnson’s biggest risk to date. We’re a couple of months away from having rolled out both doses of the vaccine to over 18’s. Surely it seems logical to have waited until then. We also need to step up our efforts in rolling out the vaccines across the world, otherwise we will continue to see new variants enter the country. Although vaccines are currently effective against all known variants, we can’t be sure a future one won’t slip past. Removing restrictions now increases the chance of a lockdown later in the year, and after declaring that July 19th would be the end of any constraints to COVID, the PM would be on shaky ground if he asked the country to lockdown once more.