It was difficult to listen to Boris Johnson’s press conference on Covid without a sinking heart. Just as the UK was normalising again after the catastrophe of the past 18 months, we have abruptly been returned to a world of masking, self-isolation and fear. The PM explained that it seems this new variant spreads much more quickly, that it can be spread between those who are double-jabbed, and that it diverges significantly in its make-up from previous mutations. The authorities are in a state of understandable ignorance: they still don’t know how much protection existing vaccines – even with boosters – will give against death and hospitalisation. We must hope that they will work fine, but scientists just don’t know as the mutation is too fresh for any meaningful data to exist.
As a consequence, Mr Johnson announced the return of PCR testing for those travelling from abroad, together with self-isolation until a negative result, ten day self-isolation for all contacts of infected Omicron patients and compulsory masks in shops and on public transport. He described these measures as temporary, precautionary and proportionate – to be reviewed in three weeks in the hope that the vaccination programme is resilient and they can all be lifted. In short, the measures are not designed, says the Government, to be a gateway to lockdown and the cancellation of Christmas but as a way of avoiding such a nightmare. Ministers must be held to this timetable, and be prepared to abandon all of these restrictions if it turns out that the new variant is containable with existing vaccines.
It must also be acknowledged that the self-isolation measures announced are harsh and will have severe economic and personal impacts. We could soon be back to massive disruption of a pingdemic. It is also unclear, if the new variant is as transmissible as some fear, whether these measures will significantly slow its spread. Let us hope the new measures were not just a case of being seen to do something, and yet another useless assault on our liberties. We should never again put up with any restriction where the costs outweigh the benefits, and the Government must be open on what, if anything, all this is achieving.
There is a contest in public life, even at the very heart of government, between a targeted, strategic approach to Covid vs a bunker mentality that hates the neo-Swedish strategy that Britain has effectively adopted since freedom day. We will no doubt hear calls for the Government to go even further, to encourage people to stay at home, close supposedly “inessential” services and so forth.
But what’s not acknowledged by those who enthusiastically deploy such rhetoric is the enormous damage done to society and the individual by lockdown. Even something like flying overseas, stupidly written off as a luxury, divides families on an island that depends upon easy international travel to thrive. Lockdowns delay operations and other medical treatments. And they have an appalling impact upon mental health, especially at a time of year when seeing others is so essential to wellbeing.
Mr Johnson stated that one purpose of his new measures is to buy time to beef up the vaccination policy. Yet there was no word on how anti-viral treatments will be deployed by the NHS. Could these be enough to defang the variant? And if Covid is here to stay, and capable of swift adaptation, then what we need is a robust medical infrastructure ready to respond to anything. In which case, why does the UK still not have the manufacturing capacity to tackle new variants domestically? In May 2020, the Government said it would invest up to £93 million into a facility near Oxford designed to provide national self-sufficiency in vaccines. The goal was to be functional by the summer of 2021, yet the facility remains unopened. This is inexcusable.
