Brits ends all rules on containing virus

It switches to advising, recommending

LONDON — For the first time in almost two years, people in England woke up Thursday to no coronavirus restrictions. Advice and recommendations remain, but there are no mandates and no rules that if broken could result in fines.

The British government has lifted all remaining curbs, including the requirement to self-quarantine for those who test positive for the coronavirus — they are still encouraged to isolate, but it’s no longer unlawful if they don’t. Likewise, London transport officials Thursday dropped the requirement for commuters to wear masks on subways and buses.

Detailing the plans earlier in the week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was time to stop restricting “the liberties of the British people.”

There have been a few grand reopenings of England over the past two years, but this is the first time that all restrictions are lifted. This “Covid Freedom Day,” as some British media outlets have called it, was arguably less of a moment than other “freedom days,” with many of the remaining restrictions having been peeled away in recent months.

While the pandemic isn’t over, Johnson said, Britain can now deal with the virus “in a very different way, moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility.”

The coronavirus will now be treated more like the seasonal flu, he said.

At London’s Waterloo station, one of the busiest transport hubs in the country, a large number of people were voluntarily wearing masks Thursday — even though the penalty of roughly $267 for not wearing one has been scrapped. Signs at the entrance to Waterloo still thanked people for wearing masks “if you can, as a courtesy to others.”

The number of people hopping on London buses and “the Tube” has increased since the government scrapped its “work from home” guidance at the end of January. But figures are still far below pre-pandemic levels, with subway ridership around 60% and bus usage around 75% of what they were at the beginning of 2020.

Many commuters Thursday wondered why the British government was dropping all of its restrictions now.

Anna Marriott, 43, said that “to go gung-ho at this point is totally irresponsible, particularly for people who are vulnerable. I think they are dropping their guard when there could be more variants” on the horizon and when many parts of the world have yet to reach high vaccination levels.

“I think it’s political, not scientific, what’s happening now. He wants to declare some kind of victory on this to distract from multiple failings,” she said, referring to Johnson.

Johnson has seen his personal popularity ratings plummet following allegations that staff at Downing Street and other government offices held parties during lockdown. London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating 12 gatherings in Downing Street and Whitehall for possible criminal violations.

Other commuters agreed it was time to remove all restrictions after two years.

“It’s down to personal responsibility,” said John Lunt, an events organizer in his 60s. For him, that meant shoving a handful of masks into his jacket pocket on the way out the door. He plans to continue to wear masks on the trains and said he expects that people will probably have to get continual booster jabs. “That’s just the way we got to live,” he said.

Eugene Emerue, 46, a health-care worker, was among the majority of commuters who didn’t opt for a mask. He said he felt protected by having three vaccination shots, and he agreed that it was time to lift all restrictions.

“For how long can we lock the doors? If we don’t die of the virus, we die of hunger and a bad economy: Which one do we choose? It’s the best of the options,” he said, adding that it could take time to figure out the new norm.

Taylor Rettke, 29, said that he thought people were “ready to live with the virus” in part because the situation had changed so dramatically in the past two years.

“I think people are so sick of restrictions that they are willing to take any alternative. If that means catching the virus moving on, I think people are definitely willing to do it. It’s been a very long two years,” he said.

“At the beginning, I was terrified of catching the virus. Now I see it as an inevitability. That’s a huge shift,” Rettke said. “Even though anecdotal evidence is terrible evidence, it’s sort of the evidence we relate most to. At the beginning, we didn’t have any anecdotal evidence because no one knew anyone who had covid, so all we had was stats, and the stats were frightening.”

But now, he said, “60 to 70% of my friends have had covid, and anecdotally, it seems less threatening. … That makes me more comfortable with it.”