On Covid, No 10 is treating the public like fools

Every cryptic statement and irrational lockdown measure erodes trust in the Government’s position

It’s a process we have become wearily used to. Within minutes of Boris Johnson’s eye-popping claim that the plummeting rates of Covid hospital cases and deaths since January “have not been achieved by the vaccination programme” but instead are overwhelmingly thanks to the lockdown, the internet was awash with competing interpretations.

First came the scientists, pointing out that the Prime Minister’s odd assertion was hard to back up with evidence. The fact that the overwhelming majority of people in vulnerable groups (collectively representing 99 per cent of deaths) has now had at least one vaccination must surely have something to do with the falling death rate; and those 32 million vaccinated people must also have something to do with the reduction in transmission. Epidemiologist Tim Spector concluded the Prime Minister was “living in a different world”.

Then came the pundits, attempting to interpret the true motivations of Mr Johnson’s statement like theologians picking over a papal encyclical. Was he trying to steel us for a rise in cases in the coming months? Or attempting to dampen down enthusiasm at the newly opened pubs, having seen footage of revellers in Soho? Or was he simply seeking political cover for sticking to an ultra-cautious reopening programme despite the slew of positive data?

Alternatively, perhaps the Prime Minister had access to information he wasn’t telling us. Did he have advance sight of Wednesday’s Office for National Statistics numbers on antibody prevalence, showing a slight falling off in protection levels among the oldest age groups? Or was there worrying behind-the-scenes data about the spread of the South African variant? On social media’s more conspiratorial fringes, the answer was obvious: Mr Johnson was softening us up for the next lockdown.

It shouldn’t work like this. Something has gone badly wrong in our relationship with our leaders if the ulterior motive behind every utterance on public health needs to be considered alongside the statement itself, like an encryption key. New data from the Yougov/cambridge opinion monitor show that, on Covid, not a single one of the main information sources (including the Government) is trusted to be accurate by more than 50 per cent of people. Mr Johnson scores a depressing 35 per cent. The sense that we have been “nudged” at every stage of the pandemic has made cynics of most of us.

Meanwhile, the disconnect between what ordinary people can see with their own eyes and the Covid regulations only confirms the idea that Government pronouncements are no longer to be taken literally. The rules are starting to seem symbolic and removed, subject to broad reinterpretation. While the polling shows that people are content with the official pace of reopening, the mobility data (what people are actually doing) show they have been quietly reopening their lives since January. Data from City Hall show use of public transport in London is steadily creeping towards pre-lockdown levels.

On the one hand, daily deaths are heading towards single figures and daily cases are in the low thousands nationwide; percentage vaccine take-up is in the high-90s and the speed of the rollout has exceeded all expectations. The sun shines and pubs and tattoo parlours are open. Yet university students still cannot access in-person learning and the Queen has to sit on her own at the funeral of her husband of 74 years. It’s not that the public is stupidly optimistic, they simply recognise the need to get on with life. Two double-vaccinated people will obviously meet up indoors, no matter what the rules are. The rubric of Covid now seems more performative, ceremonial, like an official language reserved for formal settings.

That same Yougov study found that the European states where trust in

Covid information was highest were the Nordic countries. Their governments have had famously divergent Covid strategies but their style of official communications is similar.

Instead of pretending to know all the answers, leaders admit what they don’t know and what they got wrong – with the net effect that government and citizens consider themselves more on the same side against a shared foe in the virus. Despite all their difficulties, Sweden’s Covid boss, Anders Tegnell, remains broadly popular thanks to this straightforward style; Norway’s prime minister, Erna Solberg, volunteered that she regrets having closed schools earlier in the pandemic; and the Danish government scores a stunning 73 per cent trust level on Covid information.

It’s a different world. Instead of an elaborate game of nudge, what if the Prime Minister simply told us what he knows and what he doesn’t know, along with best and worst case scenarios for the coming months? He might even – perish the thought – update his plans with new data.

The Tories may be ahead in the political polls but they have a trust problem that after a year of pandemic is worse than ever.