PM’s poser – open or wait
Boris Johnson faces a life-or-death decision. That is not hyperbole. In the next few days, the British prime minister must decide whether to fully reopen society as planned, even as a new and highly infectious coronavirus variant surges.
Johnson will make this decision as British scientists – who are running one of the best genomic surveillance programmes in the world – are telling him that the viral strain B.1.617.2, originally discovered in India and known now as the Delta variant, is exploding, and that Britain could soon enter a dreaded third wave.
The Delta variant is at least 40 per cent more infectious, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this week, and it is becoming the dominant strain in Britain – outpacing the variant first discovered in southeast England that became ubiquitous in Europe and the United States. Cases of the Delta variant are now doubling every eight days.
Early laboratory studies and clinical data suggest it may resist the vaccines a little bit, and people who have been only partially vaccinated may be vulnerable. But hospitalisations are still low, and ICU beds across the National Health Service system are mostly empty of coronavirus cases. On Monday, England recorded just a single death from the virus.
That makes it harder to tell the British people they need to wait.
Johnson pledged that it would be ‘‘data not dates’’ that decide when his government should loosen restrictions. Then his government announced a set of target dates, and British people and businesses made plans accordingly.
The last and biggest opening is set to occur on June 21, when ‘‘all legal limits on social contact’’ are lifted, clearing the way for a return to packed theatres, schools, sports arenas, pubs, clubs and trains.
Yet the scientists tracking new cases are advising caution.
‘‘It’s not an easy decision. It’s probably harder than any of the previous ones,’’ said Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia.
Hunter said he believed Britain was already at the beginning of a third wave. If the Delta variant kept increasing exponentially, ‘‘we’re going to get quite high numbers, eventually’’.
But Hunter said hospitalisation data suggested that there was not a marked increase in acute care for coronavirus patients, ‘‘which, to be honest, is probably what many people look at as being the most important criteria’’.
Hunter said he expected Johnson to lift the last restrictions. ‘‘And I think that is probably the right decision at the moment. But this time tomorrow, I might change my mind.’’
The government is waiting until at least Monday to decide.
Johnson’s former top aide, Dominic Cummings, alleged in seven hours of scathing parliamentary testimony recently that Johnson was ‘‘unfit for the job’’ and that the prime minister’s delay on previous lockdown decisions contributed to ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of avoidable deaths. Overall, more than 128,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Britain.
Cummings described one moment, 10 days before the country went into lockdown, when a powerful official conceded that Johnson’s government had ‘‘no plan’’ and used an expletive to describe the situation.
The government is now running one of the most successful mass vaccination programmes in history. That is what the prime minister wants people to remember – not the many U-turns, the botched test-and-trace programme, the discarded apps, the mixed messaging or the dearth of protective gear for nurses. And certainly not the explosion of deaths in British nursing homes last year – in part because sick elderly patients were discharged from hospitals without being tested first for the virus.
Delaying the full reopening goes against Johnson’s libertarian instincts. It is sunny now, and the May rains have turned England into a green garden. Johnson does not want to be the prime minister who tells a frustrated population to hold on a few more weeks before enjoying all their freedoms.
But even if it was deeply uncomfortable, personally and politically, he has ordered three national lockdowns in the past 15 months. And they have been some of the strictest in the world, at times closing down almost everything, to the point where central London looked like the set for a zombie apocalypse movie.
Hancock said all options remain on the table and that a short delay in lifting all restrictions might be the most prudent course. – Washington Post