If the country is experiencing a distinct sense of Yuletide déjà vu, it is hardly surprising. In the run-up to last Christmas the Government issued a warning that a new variant of Covid-19 was “out of control” and that people should stay at home and not mix over the festive period. Dozens of countries banned flights from the UK and began imposing lockdowns. It is astonishing to think that 12 months later, with millions of people vaccinated, many three times, we are back almost to where we started.

The variant on the rampage last December was the Kent strain; now it is omicron. Precisely the same debate is being had now as a year ago, with the same participants making the same forecasts and demanding the same restrictions.

Scientific advisers take to the airwaves in “a personal capacity” to pile pressure on ministers to order an immediate lockdown because of the rapid spread of the mutation. This time, they have been blocked by a Cabinet unwilling to plunge the country into further restrictions without more information about the trajectory of omicron – but for how much longer?

In any case, we are in a lockdown in all but name. Here I am once again sitting at home, communicating remotely with colleagues and wondering when this madness will ever end. After almost two years, three jabs, a dose of Covid and a test that showed high levels of antibodies, the idea that I, along with millions of others, have to undergo a form of house arrest is depressing beyond words.

But I am more than downhearted. I am getting very fed up with a group of people who appear to be disproportionately responsible for this state of affairs. They are the elephant in the Covid room, about whom we talk in hushed tones or ignore entirely: the unvaccinated.

We hear them mentioned but with little in the way of follow-up. Ministers and medics urge them to get the jab but not many are listening, even if some are now coming forward and should do so without fear of being stigmatised.

We face another lockdown because of the threat to the NHS posed by the rapid spread of omicron. Already businesses have been trashed by self-imposed restraints, requiring yet more help from a depleted Treasury. The knock-on effects have been calamitous for pubs, cafes and restaurants that rely on pre-Christmas trade to bolster their cash flow into the new year.

The panacea, we are told, is to get boosted. Yet by definition the refuseniks will not get a third jab when they have not been vaccinated in the first place. I understand if someone does not want to get jabbed. It is their body and they are entitled to say they do not want to be medicated. We cannot force them to. But if the consequence of that decision is to place others at risk then it cannot be allowed to pass by default. We all understand, too, that some people for a variety of medical reasons cannot have the vaccine.

In order to persuade a greater take-up of jabs, the Government wanted to bring in vaccine passports for certain settings but watered these down to include proof of a negative test, which rather defeats the object. Scores of Tory MPs voted against even this on the grounds that such a measure was illiberal.

But the Conservative Party has never been a libertarian movement. It is supposed to believe that with rights come responsibilities. Opponents of heavy-handed state action against the citizen often quote J S Mill’s famous dictum: “The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised society, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” I agree with that. I don’t see why I should have restrictions placed on me when I am unlikely to cause harm to others.

But that is not necessarily true of the unvaccinated. According to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, nine in 10 Covid patients needing the most care are unjabbed. A similar point was made by Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, who said the “vast, vast majority” of seriously ill people were unjabbed, identifying “black Londoners, Muslim Londoners, Jewish Londoners and eastern European Londoners” as groups that are proving particularly resistant. Why is this?

In the absence of comprehensive official data, we are having to rely on anecdotal evidence, but I know several hospital consultants who tell of seriously ill patients being transferred to critical care units who are still unvaccinated, taking up emergency beds needed for other patients.

One told me that so far he had not seen anyone in intensive care who had been jabbed, suggesting that even if vaccinated people are getting sick, they’re not getting as sick. This should be good news, even with the onset of omicron, and yet here we are again facing a lockdown to preserve the NHS from collapse.

Are we going to do something about this? Some other countries have imposed restrictions on the movements of the unvaccinated in an effort to get them to take up the offer. Singapore is charging unjabbed patients for treatment because they “make up a sizeable majority of those who require intensive in-patient care and disproportionately contribute to the strain on our healthcare resources”. Imagine trying to do that here, where we tiptoe around the subject even though it has become the key issue that needs to be addressed.

The Government needs to pitch its information campaign directly at these people, not entreat them just in passing. GPs should identify who they are and warn them of the consequences and distribute antiviral medicines, assuming they will take them.

Special pop-up Covid wards could be established for seriously ill patients, although there is the problem of staffing, especially with the absurdly long isolation period required for anyone testing positive.

The truth is that a good deal of our difficulties are down to the inability of a nationalised health system to adapt, plan and cope, but that is not going to change overnight. Moreover, we were never going to get 100 per cent vaccination because the disease is not scary enough – unlike, say, smallpox, which was a death sentence for many. We could live with Covid without worrying about a collapsing health care system if more people were inoculated.

If something isn’t done to improve take-up dramatically, next Christmas it could be déjà vu all over again.