You cannot lose your nerve now, Mr Javid

ON Monday we were given an uplifting new Covid contract. A day later, we discovered a massive catch in the small print.

July 19 was meant to be the bonfire of the regulations, when state diktat gave way to personal responsibility.

Now we learn that one of the most restrictive rules will stay until at least August 16, threatening the holiday plans of countless families. Not just foreign holidays. It will apply whether you’re going to Santorini or Center Parcs.

It’s the requirement to self-isolate if you have been in contact with a Covid-infected person – even if you yourself test negative and have been double-jabbed.

It means that if any member of the family receives a notification – either through the NHS app or by phone – they must remain under house arrest for a full ten days. If this cuts into a planned vacation, tough luck.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday that after August 16, under-18s and those who are fully vaccinated will become exempt.

But if his prediction of 100,000 new cases a day comes true, a staggering 3.5million people a week could be in home quarantine by that date. As well as potential holidaymakers, this would include doctors, nurses and other essential workers.

Similarly troubling is the delay in scrapping school ‘bubbles’, where all children in a class or group are sent home to isolate if anyone tests positive.

Some 640,000 pupils are currently off school because of 20,000 who tested positive. It is absurd, yet Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says schools can keep the bubbles until the autumn.

Why not scrap them straight away, and give 600,000 or more pupils an extra two weeks of much-needed schooling?

If the link between infection, hospitalisation and death is all but broken, these delays – which will cause untold chaos – are unnecessary.

It’s time to let go of nurse.