Yesterday Boris Johnson announced that from the 19th July the government was ending most covid restrictions. The key points are that the wearing of masks will no longer be compulsory and that all businesses will be able to open up. Many people will be expected to return to work in their offices. In his address he said:
"there could be 50,000 cases a day detected by the 19th and again, as we predicted we're seeing rising hospital admissions and we must reconcile ourselves sadly to more deaths"
He also said it was better to open up now than in the winter when cases could be even higher!
In addition, today Gavin Williamson announced the end of school bubbles at a time when 640,000 schoolchildren are isolation - with no sign that they will be vaccinated.
Just think about Johnson's statement for a moment becuase it means two things; firstly the government have given up on trying to contain the virus, and are going for herd immunity, and secondly they want to open up early before more people have been protected by the vaccines. This means that the delta variant could rip through the population with as many as 100,000 cases a day by the Autumn. As Johnson said, more people will die and it's seems the government is comfortable with that - recent research shows that the Pfizer vaccine is only 60% effective against the delta variant. So, the numbers may be lower but there will still be many thousands more who are hospitalised - even if they have had two jabs - and thousands more suffering with long covid.
Currently UK cases are at about 28,000 a day while cases in Europe are still falling, and the UK is following a covid strategy which is at odds with our neighbours.
The real risk is that as the delta variant spreads rapidly through the population unchecked there is the possibility of a new variant arising which is even more resistant to the vaccines. We may even end up in a situation where we need to have another lockdown in the winter.
There are many who will believe, as I do, that fully opening up at this stage is reckless and irresponsible, if not criminal. The very least the government should have done is to mandate the wearing of masks on public transport and in shops. I've no doubt many will continue to wear masks and observe distancing to protect others, I will certainly be doing that. The real question here is not just how many people will suffer becuase of this but why support for the government in the polls remains so high when they have manifestly failed to control the virus and protect citizens.
