This Short-Sighted, Libertarian Dash For The Covid Exit Is Reckless

It was an extraordinary way to end nearly two years of restrictions and lockdowns.

- Will Hutton

With no explanatory briefings from either the chief medical officer or chief scientific adviser, no input from Sage and no consultation with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, told a surprised House of Commons he would unilaterally lift all Covid restrictions in England a month ahead of time on 24 February.

How public health could be sustained thereafter was plainly an afterthought, of little consequence to be unveiled after the recess in a document pointedly called Living with Covid. Nobody expects other than the scantest strategy, with even the Office for National Statistics’s highly regarded surveillance survey, which allows the UK to pick up the emergence of high-risk variants, likely to be scaled back or scrapped after April.

Any continuing requirement to self-isolate? Wear masks? Any social distancing? Working from home? Covid passports? All over. Even, it seems under Treasury pressure, free PCR testing is to be stopped for all but the most at risk. With a confidence born of Omicron proving to be much less dangerous than feared in December, the gamble not to lock down has been validated; England is to be the “first in the world” to be free of restrictions.