Roadmap is a policy of tolerable deaths total

IS the Prime Minister’s roadmap a one-way route out of lockdown, or is it leading us up a cul-de-sac to yet another?

Of course, Mr Johnson wants us to focus on when we might be able to get our hair done, hug our granny, sink a pint or watch a match up at the King Power, but why should we believe that this unlocking will be any different to the two others?

The vaccine rollout has been impressive. Proof, if ever it was needed, about how effective the NHS family can be.

Great efficacy results are pouring in from various studies. Global vaccinologists deserve the highest praise and recognition.

But, are we putting all our fragile eggs into one basket?

Will the piecemeal dismantling of the lockdown measures, which have reduced transmission, admittance to hospitals and on to reducing death rates, set ourselves up for Lockdown 4? The Prime Minister laid out four criteria for his roadmap. None of them refers to transmission rates or the R number. Worryingly, coronavirus is still circulating at significant levels in the community. The opportunity for further, more serious, mutations presents itself.

Modelling, which has taken into account the vaccination program, shows the wholesale reopening of schools will lead to a minimum of 30,000 further deaths. Continuing to place the UK at the unenviable top of Europe’s death rates.

How stretched should our NHS resources continue to be? How many Covid deaths per day will the population deem acceptable?

Boris Johnson hasn’t so much unveiled a road map to the sunny uplands of personal liberty as a political policy of tolerable deaths.

Joleta Meakin