As the last of the COVID restrictions have been removed in England, it can be confidently said that the pandemic is over in England. Now, that is not to say the virus is gone and complete caution can be thrown to the wind. However, the last of the health measures defining an emergency has been removed. It is time to turn our attention to more pressing matters and confine these restrictions to the history books.
Thursday 24th of February marks the end of the self-isolation rules in England. This is fantastic news. At a time where the cost of living is skyrocketing and WW3 is seemingly on the horizon, some positivity is needed back into the world. This will help bring a spring back into people’s steps, knowing that they will no longer have to put their life on hold should they catch the virus. These restrictions fall back to the level of advice, beneficial for a society that champions personal responsibility and choice.
With the UK’s fantastic vaccination programme, there is no reason to keep these restrictions. New treatments, such as, Dexamethasone, will make COVID easier to deal with, something that the Royal Infirmary in Newcastle is finding. People are spending less time in hospitals, and ventilation use is not the norm it used to be. Our vaccination rate stands at 85% for a full two doses and 66% for a booster. This shows a high rate of vaccination that is keeping the severe effects of COVID at bay, which in turn is keeping people out of the hospital. Hospitals are not in the same position they used to be in, and our level of restrictions should reflect that.
Johnson’s timing, however, is curious. It has been a turbulent few months for the government, as scandals of lockdown parties culminated in an ongoing investigation for the Met and the Sue Gray report, which condemned the failures in leadership and judgement. This resulted in a huge public outcry, with many Tories publicly criticising Johnson. These restrictions were initially scheduled to end in March and yet, were brought forward. Now, there is no question that science showed that it was possible to do this, but political factors no doubt played a role. Johnson would have liked the media and the public to focus on the fantastic news about COVID, and forget about his scandalous parties. In an ironic turn of events, Johnson’s COVID news has been upstaged by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, taking the media attention from what should be a great day.
Questions have been raised as to whether this is a gamble or not. And while it is, as removing restrictions inevitably always is, there is reason to think that this will pay off. Johnson was highly criticised for his plans to remove all restrictions in the summer. For example, Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, attacked this decision as unleashing a “summer of chaos”. Yet this dark prophecy failed to materialise, and instead, the British people had an amazing time. In the winter, when the Omicron variant made its way to our shores, Johnson again gambled. Instead of bringing the heavy hand that Wales and Scotland brought with their restrictions, Johnson applied a light-touch approach with Plan B and successfully saw the UK out of the wave. This is despite the doomsday warnings from many scientists, such as SAGE calling for more stringent restrictions, things that were proved to be wrong.
Both of these instances show that Johnson’s gambles have paid off in the past, and this one is likely to as well. Studies have found that compliance with the self-isolation period has been waning. For instance, a survey done in November by the Office of National Statistics found that one in four adults were not following self-isolation rules, reaffirming the results of a study done in April published in the British Medical Journal, which found that less than one in five people followed isolation rules. If people are not following the rules anyway, no major change will occur with there being no rules.
The UK has reached the stage in its pandemic timeline that it is able to remove the heavy-handed restrictions. It is time to move on. There are more important things that must be addressed now, such as the rising cost of living and the crisis in Ukraine. Our hospitals are no longer feeling the effects as severely as they have done in the past. While the timing is certainly suspect, there is no reason to think that ending these restrictions a month early will have a significant impact.
Words by Kieran Burt
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