Judge the risk yourselves, says Boris

PEOPLE will be left to make their own judgments on whether Christmas celebrations are worth the risk, Boris Johnson said yesterday.

The Prime Minister said it would be ‘inhuman’ to ban Christmas entirely and confirmed that the festive bubble policy allowing households to mix would remain in place despite warnings that it will lead to more deaths.

But he said people should ‘think hard’ about what they do and ‘a smaller Christmas is going to be a safer Christmas’.

At a Downing Street press conference Mr

Johnson stressed that the provisions for three households meeting over five days were ‘maximums, not a target to aim for’ and urged people to avoid staying away from home overnight where possible.

He also suggested people should avoid seeing elderly relatives and instead wait until more have been vaccinated.

The Government said that, as of 9am yesterday, there had been a further 25,161 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 1,913,277. The Prime Minister admitted the situation had deteriorated since the festive bubble rules were set by the four nations of the UK as the Government issued updated guidance for the ‘Christmas window’.

Mr Johnson said: ‘While it would not be right, we think, to criminalise people who have made plans and simply want to spend time with their loved ones, we’re collectively – across the UK governments at every level – asking you to think hard, and in detail about the days ahead.’

He said the laws were remaining the same but ‘a smaller Christmas is going to be a safer Christmas and a shorter Christmas is a safer Christmas’. He added: ‘Have yourselves a merry little Christmas – and I’m afraid this year I do mean little.’

The Government has been under intense pressure to scale down Christmas plans because of fears about a surge in cases, particularly given the experience in the US since Thanksgiving in November.

The British Medical Association has called on people to keep social mixing indoors to an ‘absolute minimum’ over Christmas.

BMA council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: ‘Relaxing the rules will, without doubt, cost lives and the impact on the NHS in the new year will be grave.’