Quiet resolve of the British confounds the doom-mongers
STOICISM is said to be one of the Britain’s prime virtues. We are the nation of the stiff upper lip, the Kiplingesque ability to keep our heads in adversity. As Charles Darwin put it, “Englishmen rarely cry except under the pressure of the acutest grief.”
Yet the latest twist in the Covid saga seems to have obliterated a sense of fortitude and forbearance in some quarters.
In response to the Omicron strain, the Government introduced a limited set of measures. These include mandatory maskwearing on public transport, in shops and in communal areas of schools, as well as reintroducing PCR tests and quarantine for UK arrivals.
Projected to last just three weeks, the scheme could hardly be branded draconian. Boris Johnson was fully justified in describing it as “a balanced and proportionate approach”.
Yet it led to a hysterical overreaction from certain politicians and commentators. Judging by their outbursts, you would think the Government was adopting the methods of the Spanish Inquisition or Chairman Mao.
DURING this week’s Commons debate on the restrictions, Tory rebel Steve Baker warned we are “heading to hell – a hell of minute management of our lives by edict”, while in print his colleague Sir Graham Brady wailed the plan “makes us all lose some humanity”.
Similarly, one commentator moaned about “the madness” of a Government bent on creating “a dystopian world of halffaces and frightened eyes”.
These doom-mongers should get a grip.They are guilty of the very weakness for which they attack ministers. In the name of upholding freedom, they are wallowing in panic and despair. Britain is not sliding into tyranny, nor is Christmas about to be cancelled.
In their restrained impact, these restrictions don’t amount to anything like the lockdowns we experienced before July.
There must, of course, be the most profound sympathy for businesses affected by the new climate of uncertainty, particularly those in hospitality and travel. As happened in the first waves of the pandemic, the Government should give what support it can to firms in difficulty because of Covid,
But faced with Omicron, ministers are right to exercise caution. This variant has only just emerged and, as it spread rapidly worldwide, there seemed initially a real possibility it could be more transmissible, more deadly and even capable of evading the vaccines.
So some sort of Government action was required. The focus on masks was the obvious course, not as a form of authoritarian gesture politics as critics suggest, but because there is increasing evidence of their effectiveness in lowering rates of transmission.
A recent study published in the British Medical Journal revealed mask-wearing could lead to a 53 per cent reduction in the incidence of Covid.
The public recognises this reality. That is why there is overwhelming support for the measures and why the wild claims about despotism have gained so little traction.
Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Whitty was correct when he said last week: “I think the extraordinary thing has been the ability of the population, with very, very small exceptions, to just accept that there are things we have to do collectively to protect one another.”
As it turns out, we may not have to accept the new controls for long. Yesterday, the World Health Organisation and a group of South African doctors
issued an upbeat interim report on Omicron, stating the variant appeared “super-mild” and had yet to result in any deaths or hospitalisations.
I‘Britain is not sliding into tyranny, nor is Christmas about to be cancelled’
F THAT is true, there may be a swift relaxation in the rules. Such a move would confound the Covid sceptics, who like to assert that no government ever relinquishes any power once they have seized it. Boris made a nonsense of that claim on Freedom Day last July and will shortly do so again.
The pandemic has been an unprecedented public health catastrophe, causing the deaths of more than 145,000 Britons.
But we are now in a very different place from the last lockdown, thanks to the worldbeating jabs rollout, medical knowledge and advances in treatment.
What has not changed is the resilience and common sense of the British people.
In her message to the nation at the start of the first lockdown, the Queen said “the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet, good-humoured resolve and of fellow feeling, still characterise this country”.
Those words are just as resonant today.