Covid-19: is the pandemic over?

“It was an extraordinary way to end nearly two years of restrictions and lockdowns,” said Will Hutton in The Guardian. There were no “explanatory briefings” from the Chief Medical Officer or Scientific Adviser, or UK-wide consultations. Instead, the PM simply told “a surprised House of Commons” that he would unilaterally lift all Covid restrictions in England on 24 February, a month ahead of time. Any requirement to self-isolate if testing positive will end. Wearing masks? Social distancing? Working from home? All over. Worryingly little thought has been given to public health thereafter. A document called “Living With Covid” has been promised for 21 February. It is expected to set out the “scantest of strategies” to contain the virus. Even free PCR testing, it seems, is to end, along with the ONS infection survey, which scans for “high-risk variants”. This policy is crazy, said Victoria Richards in The Independent. It’s sold as freedom, but it means the exact opposite for the ill and vulnerable: it’s just not fair to pass on this disease “like a relay baton at sports day”.

Don’t do it then, said Andrew Lilico in The Daily Telegraph. Just because self-isolation will no longer be mandatory, doesn’t mean people won’t have the “common sense” to stay at home when they’re sick. This is a welcome step towards “full normalisation”, especially since cases and hospitalisations are now dropping significantly. I agree, said Prof Karol Sikora in the Daily Mail. Vaccinations have done “outstanding work”. In February 2021, about five infections in 100 proved fatal. Now it’s ten in 2,000. But “two years of fear” have taken “a terrible toll”, particularly among the young, elderly and people with non-Covid conditions that went undiagnosed because they were too scared to go near hospitals or GPs. “The Government needs instead to focus on repairing the damage.”

So, officially, the pandemic is over, said Tom Whipple in The Times – but the virus may have other ideas. “There is genuine ambivalence” within the Government’s scientific advisory group, Sage, although few expect an immediate surge in infections as a result: many sufferers are likely to voluntarily self-isolate. Yet there are still more than 1,000 Covid hospitalisations per day in Britain. Of particular concern are the half a million immunocompromised people for whom any infection is much riskier. No official strategy to protect them in the future, such as offering access to antiviral drugs of the kind used in the US, has been communicated. As one campaigner put it, the plan seems to be: “good luck, and God bless”.