Amid the gloom of February and the cost-of-living crisis, there are at least some reasons to be cheerful when it comes to coronavirus in the UK. Vaccinations have saved countless lives and allowed people to return to many of the activities they missed. The Omicron variant did not lead to the rocketing rates of hospitalisation and death initially feared, and infection and mortality rates are declining again.
The desire to return to pre-pandemic life is natural – a reaction to the sacrifices made and, more generally, to the exhaustion and emotional toll of the past two years. People are tired of thinking about Covid. But the best hope of maximising our freedoms is to rigorously monitor the spread of infection and enable people to protect themselves and others. The government appears set on dismantling the very things that make this possible.
Last Wednesday, Boris Johnson announced abruptly that he plans to end all domestic Covid regulations from next week, including the requirement to self-isolate on testing positive. The prime minister was led by Tory backbench instincts, not science, or even popular demand; fewer than one in five support the change. Though his spokesman subsequently said that “we would never recommend anyone goes to work when they have an infectious disease”, many will be genuinely confused by the messaging, and less scrupulous bosses will press infected people back to work – at a time when deaths are still averaging more than 175 a day.
The lack of adequate sick pay already means that some workers cannot afford to stay home. Problems will be further exacerbated by the proposals to phase out free testing, at least for all but the most vulnerable and for high-risk settings. The better-off will still be able to minimise the risk to their loved ones or co-workers; the poorer will have to take their chances. It cannot be in the best interests of the economy for sick workers to infect colleagues and customers. Short-term savings must be set against the impact of sickness on businesses, the costs of long Covid and the setbacks in tackling hospital backlogs that are likely to result.
Even worse is the threat to prematurely end the Office for National Statistics surveillance survey on Covid – genuinely world-class research. In the words of Stephen Reicher, a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science, this is “like switching off the radar before the Battle of Britain was finished”. Critical data on the prevalence of infection and emergence of mutations will be unavailable, and less will be known about the long-term impact. Experts will be less well equipped to monitor the pandemic, and individuals less able to make informed choices in weighing up risks. The clinically vulnerable, in particular, will be stranded further from normal life; for them, this means much less freedom, not more.
The Treasury’s eagerness to save pennies and the prime minister’s need to buy support mean that the UK is jettisoning essential tools too early. Proper monitoring and support for people to stay at home when infectious, as well as encouraging masking and ensuring better ventilation, are crucial. Better support for the global vaccination drive is also essential to reduce the risk of new variants emerging. We all long to reach the other side of the pandemic and we hope that we can at last glimpse it. Shutting our eyes is the worst way to navigate there.
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