Western Morning News (Saturday)
Are we lifting Covid restrictions too soon?
ALMOST two years since the UK went into its first lockdown, the Government is planning to lift all legally-imposed Covid-19 restrictions.
No more masks, no more isolation and no more compulsory tests for travellers. While the rules were due to end in March, Boris Johnson has said he plans to scrap them a month earlier.
But while we all breathe a collective sigh of relief, perhaps questioning the PM’s ulterior motives, there will be many wondering if it’s not all a bit too soon to throw caution to the wind.
Most of us understand why lockdown and other restrictions had to be imposed like lightning in order to halt the rapid spread of a disease we didn’t understand, but why the haste to end restrictions almost overnight when we’ve all been through so much?
Having personally fallen foul of the timing of several Covid rules, including doing 10 days isolation just before the period was reduced, I am both a bit irritated and sceptical about the new freedom day and whether the NHS will be able to start operating as it did pre-Covid any time in the near future.
And that scepticism is shared by many others, not least the scientists who the politicians only appear to quote when imposing restrictions.
Prof Graham Medley, one of the government’s lead modellers, has warned that while the number of UK cases and hospitalisations appears to be going down, there is still the risk of a long, flat peak which will see infections and serious illness drop very slowly in coming months.
The number of people doing regular tests for Covid has reduced significantly this year, not least because the arrival of Omicron meant lateral flow tests were like gold dust, but also because the rules in England now say that those who test positive on an LFT will no longer need a confirmatory PCR test.
Prof Medley told the BBC that if we remain at the same sort of levels of infection we have at the moment for some time, “the NHS will remain under huge pressure.”
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, Chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), said removing effective infection control measures, like mask wearing, will “inevitably increase transmission and place the public at greater risk, especially for those who are vulnerable”.
The NHS Confederation is equally concerned, warning that “even with restrictions and many people going further to protect themselves and others, the number in hospital with Covid is high and the numbers are only going down very slowly.”
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the confederation, warned: “Covid19 has not magically disappeared, and we are likely to have to learn to live alongside it for years to come.
“Lifting restrictions doesn’t mean a return to normality is inevitable. We need to be honest with the public that a decision to lift restrictions is a trade-off. We will have greater freedoms but the cost – at least in the short term – will be that more people are likely to get sick with Covid, and that the health service will continue to have to deal with the extra burdens that this creates.”
None of that should make us feel terribly confident that “living with Covid” is going to be like living with flu or other infectious diseases, or that the NHS will be freed from Covid’s pincer-like grip any time soon.
But while many will be happy to throw caution – and their facemasks – to the wind on February 21, I can’t see the majority of the British public suddenly forgetting the fear they have had for Covid over the last two years. It will be that collective tenacity, combined with our respect for all those who have sacrificed so much during the pandemic, which will see most of us continue to be cautious.
Why the haste to end restrictions almost overnight when we’ve been through so much?