Covid restrictions are to be tightened across the country just weeks before Christmas, Boris Johnson confirmed in a Downing Street press conference on December 8, in a bid to tackle the omicron variant.
People will have to work from home from December 13, whilst vaccine passports will be required for all large venues and face masks will become compulsory in most indoor venues from December 10, but not in pubs, bars or restaurants.
The Government’s Covid-19 winter plan, first published in mid-September, had made clear that ministers would move to this Plan B if the NHS was “likely to come under unsustainable pressure.” Your questions on the Government’s winter Covid plan were answered by our deputy political editor, Lucy Fisher, on September 15 during a live Q&A.
This latest news on the enactment of Plan B has seen Telegraph readers take to the comments section and send in responses via WhatsApp – sign up details can be found at the bottom of this article.
Some readers share their lack of faith that the restrictions are being brought in for sound reasons, and state that it is time we start to live with the virus, others express the personal impacts restrictions have had and will continue to have on their lives.
Read on to see what your fellow readers have to say and join the discussion in the comments section.
‘Why not step back and think about alternative solutions?
@Jack Jack:
“‘Omicron is growing much faster than the previous delta variant, and it’s spreading rapidly all around the world,’ the Prime Minister said.
“Then why ruin people’s lives through futile acts of trying to stop its spread? What could it achieve apart from taking you round in never ending circles? Why not step back and think about alternative solutions?
“Why not be a pathfinder for the world and lead instead of being part of the herd? And if you cannot see or do these things then why not pass on the baton to someone who can? We need someone who can think outside of the box.”
‘This is not about our safety, it is about poor management of the NHS’
@Lori (via WhatsApp):
“I am appalled at the restrictions being reintroduced. We have to learn to live with Covid, just like other viruses. This is not about our safety, it is about poor management of the NHS, a weak government being pushed around by scientists and the Unions.
“I have never felt so shocked by how a government would use authoritarian manoeuvres to deflect from their own hypocrisy. Yesterday was a bad day for British politics and governance.”
‘I have no faith the restrictions are being brought in for sound reasons’
@Vicky:
“I am utterly dismayed and dejected by the new Covid restrictions. I have no faith that they are being brought in for any sound reasons, but rather in an attempt to change the news narrative away from the Number 10 party. How dare the Government do this? The Government seems to be morally bankrupt.”
‘We aren’t set up for permanent remote working’
@Ben C (via WhatsApp):
“It is my last day in the office today for the next few months. We were just starting to get normality back, and now we are sent home again.
“We lost more of our graduate cohort last year without the pastoral informal contact that makes those schemes a valuable learning experience, and we will probably now lose this year’s again, too.
“We aren’t set up for this kind of permanent remote working, even just a single day of contact really helped.”
‘My fundamental freedoms are being ripped away’
@Phil Tea:
“During the past twelve months I have gone from a healthy, chirpy, positive member of society to a shadow of my former self.
“This year I caught Covid in a quarantine hotel after a PPE breach, I had my PhD research ruined, I lost my job, I lost my relationship with my family, I suffered physical decline after the first jab left me with blood clots. I watched my social life disintegrate, I experienced a tortuous decline in my mental health, and now, at the end of it all, my fundamental freedoms are being ripped away.”
‘I see no point in repeating the same ineffectual measures again’
@Peter Miles:
“We have been through all of these measures before, and what did they achieve?
“Covid hasn’t vanished, the NHS has largely carried on unchanged (which may or may not be a good thing), but, in reality, what have the previous lockdowns actually done?
“I see no point in repeating the same ineffectual measures again. We must all know by now that we cannot keep Covid out, and we must also know that we cannot keep hiding forever. For better or worse, we have to learn to live with it. Vaccinate by all means but, as I see it, that’s all we can do.”
‘Plan B is too strong a measure if omicron is less virulent’
@Stuart Price (via WhatsApp):
“This Plan B is a dog’s dinner. It has not been properly thought out and is too strong a measure if omicron is less virulent.
“The Government does not want the economy to suffer, so they have not closed hospitality which, at this time of year, will surely lead to mass infections.
“We just have to hope the scientists are right, and it is a milder form than all earlier mutations.”
