There can be few people who don’t want to return to the happy-go-lucky days before Covid-19. It’s only human to hanker for a time when one could hug a friend or sit next to a stranger without fear of spreading a deadly disease. But the measured judgments of the government’s top scientists on Monday evening confirmed that going back to the norms of the pre-pandemic world remains some way off. Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance warned that infection rates remain high; that there are still significant numbers of people in hospital with Covid; and that a viral resurgence could “lead to [more] hospitalisations than Omicron”.
This makes Boris Johnson’s decision to end all remaining Covid restrictions in England, including the legal requirement to self-isolate, baffling. Also gone by Thursday will be the self-isolation support payments of £500 for those on low incomes, and routine contact tracing. Next week Covid tests will no longer be free for most people including, bizarrely, NHS staff – which will inevitably leave vulnerable patients worried about a risk to their health. While restrictions are being relaxed in other parts of Britain, they have not been as dramatically swept away as in England.
Mr Johnson’s decision is reckless. Ending self-isolation and testing will increase infections. Perhaps his gamble is that the effect will be so small that no one will notice. The government is not following the science, but its political instincts. Mr Johnson wants the support of a handful of Tory MPs amid the ongoing partygate scandal. In return for their votes, he is prepared to throw caution – and reason – to the wind.
The moves are at odds with the public mood. For all the talk of restoring “freedoms”, polls indicate only 17% think people shouldn’t legally have to isolate. Mr Johnson’s claim that he is letting people exercise “personal responsibility” hides a policy where options are limited to those who have the means. Without proper support for isolation, many will go to work ill and spread Covid. The prime minister’s exhortation that British workers should imitate their German counterparts by staying at home when feeling unwell is undermined by the fact the UK has far lower levels of statutory sick pay. His claim that “anyone who wants to can buy a test” exposes an indifference towards people who cannot afford them.
Mr Johnson’s message is that the pandemic is over and life can get back to normal. This is dangerous as it undercuts a public health message, when nearly a third of adults are unvaccinated. Covid is being checked but not eliminated. To help to keep the virus under control, it would be better to ease self-isolation at a slower pace and retain free tests. Mr Johnson frames this as being too expensive, a thinly veiled attempt to panic voters about the state of the public finances.
For all the suffering, Covid also revealed new possibilities. The ability of the government to spend vast sums of money demonstrated the economic power it has to address a threat deemed serious enough. The pandemic functioned as an object lesson in what is possible. Maybe it was that hope Mr Johnson feared spreading – even more than the virus.