Kate Andrews:

We can’t see a repeat of the old system, where regions were unable to escape the ruinous Covid restrictions

At last, some of the absurdities in the Covid restrictions are being ironed out. Gyms will all be allowed to reopen next week: not only did analysis before lockdown suggest transmission of the virus was extremely low in gyms, but removing options for physical exercise contradicted the Government’s other Covid-related health efforts. The 10pm curfew is being revised to “last orders”, so as to avoid a rush of people out the door. Covid tests will be used to get people who are self-isolating with no evidence they have the virus back into the world. Travel quarantines are set to be slashed to five days.

Perhaps most crucially, the second lockdown is ending, to be replaced by the tier system – albeit a more restrictive one.

There is good reason to think the tier system was abandoned too quickly in October, as Covid-heavy areas like Manchester and Liverpool saw their cases levelling off under Tier 3 before the second lockdown came into effect. In theory at least, a regional approach is by far more sensible and proportionate.

Yet too many inconsistencies in the rules remain. Why, for example, has the curfew been pushed back to 11pm, instead of being scrapped, when even Sage said curfews have only a “marginal impact” in controlling the spread of the virus? Why, in England, will young children still count towards the “rule of six”, despite Wales and Scotland exempting all children under 11 and 12 respectively?

And why does the rule of six remain so strict outdoors? In Tiers 1 and 2, outdoor events will be allowed to host thousands of spectators: it doesn’t add up that you could be outside surrounded by strangers, yet it remains illegal for extended families of seven to have a socially distanced meet-up in a private garden.

There are also issues around restrictions within tiers. In Tier 3, pubs and restaurants will be forced to stay closed, apart from deliveries and takeaways, during one of their busiest seasons – yet in the last Influenza and Covid surveillance report published, Public Health England found food outlets and restaurants made up only a fraction of the locations where acute respiratory infection incidents occurred. This swingeing regulation seems both damaging and unnecessary.

Crucially, we also need to know what criteria will be used to move regions between tiers. Boris Johnson indicated on Monday that it will be possible for regions to move down a tier, and that more testing resources will be given to Tier 3 areas to help them gather data to reassess their status. Some criteria have been laid out – including the number of Covid cases for the over-60s, and pressures on hospital trusts.

But we still don’t know – and have never known – the specific requirements or thresholds that move regions in and out of local lockdowns or the tiers, and much of the data – especially around intensive care capacity – is still not shared in the public domain.

What we do know from the summer months is that areas that get burdened with harsher restrictions rarely shake them off. Leicester has been under a variety of lockdown measures since July 4. If Oldham is put in the highest tier, it could endure no household mixing for almost a year. In London, a Tier 3 rating could mean nearly a quarter of the UK economy stalling for months.

Just weeks ago, the Treasury revealed that it had not done its own financial forecasts for any specific lockdown measures – a staggering revelation given the catastrophic impact they have on the economy.

But the trade-offs of certain restrictions have even furtherreaching consequences: bad rules are difficult to follow and can make people sceptical about the whole system – including measures which can meaningfully help to curb the spread of the virus. The biggest risk posed by the outstanding inconsistencies is that people lose faith and throw social distancing out of the window altogether.

The move out of lockdown is the Prime Minister’s opportunity to come up with something more sustainable to get us through the months ahead. What we need is more of the pragmatism that has emerged in recent days: logical policies to replace nonsensical measures.