An irrational excess of Covid caution
Despite the fall in coronavirus cases and the inoculation of 34 million adults, the likelihood that Covid status passports will be required to carry out normal activities in future remains strong. Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, updated MPS last night and ruled out the need for certification only for essential public services, public transport and “essential” shops. This leaves a great many settings still under consideration. He has been to see how a similar system operates in Israel.
Is this necessary? The rollout of the vaccines seems to have frozen policymakers into a paralysis of fear about the future that borders on the irrational. Some decisions need to be made now. Care home residents are still forbidden visits from more than one relative, even if they have all been inoculated. Some are not getting visits at all. As Jonathan Van-tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, acknowledged on Wednesday, fully vaccinated people are at hardly any risk.
The latest figures show around 2,000 new cases in a population of 67 million. There are 40 areas of the country where no new cases are reported at all. The concern among scientists is that the risk has not been eradicated altogether, but how can it ever be? The Government has denied it is pursuing a zero-covid policy. Has that changed?
Boris Johnson says there is nothing in the data to divert him from the road map allowing indoor hospitality to reopen from May 17 and a full release from June 21. If he sticks to that then many people will say there was no need for impatience. But with cases so low, fully vaccinated people in care homes who want to see their loved ones or just go outside for a walk should be allowed to do so unhindered.
Throughout the pandemic, the question of proportion has been to the fore. The scientists convinced the politicians and most of the country that the threat was so serious it could only be dealt with through the strictest imaginable controls on normal life. We are now, surely, at the point where the balance has tipped heavily in the other direction. Considered caution is one thing but some scientists are demanding the unachievable before signing off on a full relaxation. When the lockdown ends, cases of Covid will go up again, certainly in the autumn and winter. But that cannot be a reason for continuing restrictions. The vaccine is there to offer protection, not remove all risk for all time.