‘Living with Covid’ means ensuring the whole community is protected

Given his own record, many will consider it a little rich to be told by Boris Johnson that they should not “totally throw caution to the winds” as the last Covid precautions are set to be abolished. It seems particularly ill-timed when the Queen, a model of self-restraint and sticking to the rules, has tested positive for Covid-19, which serves to underline that this coronavirus is very much still at large.

The imminent end of self-isolation and widespread Covid testing – at least in England – is another gamble by the prime minister. He is proud that Britain is one of the most “open” societies in the world with regards to Covid restrictions, while omitting the fact that it also has one of the worst mortality rates among comparable countries.

Time and again during the pandemic, Mr Johnson has led moves to end restrictions too early, and imposed them too late to slow the spread of the virus. And, from what can be gathered about his own behaviour, he seems not to have taken the rules very seriously himself, and set a poor example to his team. Mr Johnson says that Covid is still dangerous “if you are clinically vulnerable”, but it is also dangerous to the young and fit.

Covid, as the prime minister concedes, is not over, though a combination of vaccinations, self-control and better treatments have lessened case rates and deaths from what remains a potentially deadly disease. The NHS is still under pressure and doesn’t need more Covid patients arriving in busy hospitals.

The Omicron variant has proved much less lethal than its predecessors, but it is not a “mild” illness; merely less severe than the Delta and Alpha variants, and easier to catch. It is self-evident that retaining some modest restrictions on personal freedom can still prevent Covid cases in the wider community. The clinically vulnerable remain at risk, as does everyone else.

Traditionally, it was always the advice given by doctors and public health officials that if someone has the flu, they should stay at home and not spread it around at work or in the shops. Those with Covid – a more dangerous illness than the flu and one that can leave sufferers with long-term disability – should be prevented from leaving their homes until the illness and their threat to others has passed, as determined through compulsory Covid testing. There may be some inconvenience to them and to their employers, but nothing as severe as the potential damage from an outbreak of Covid in a workforce or across a family.

Scaling back Covid testing and surveillance to a bare minimum level of defence may also be unwise. Public health bodies worldwide have shown an impressive willingness to share data and intelligence around variants of concern as they emerge, and Britain has been a world leader in genomic sequencing and analysis of this coronavirus. Now, Mr Johnson wants to end that contribution from what he calls “global Britain”. Early warnings are obviously necessary for being ready for new waves of Covid, and no respected scientific expert has come out and stated that all future coronavirus variants will necessarily be benign.

Restrictions and public self-control since before Christmas have contributed to saving lives as the rate of Omicron infection soared. How does anyone know that the next variant will be like Omicron or Delta? It could be more severe, and we do not want to discover that too late.

Testing and self-isolation protect lives immediately and buy time so that community actions can slow the spread of new variants. Vaccines have more time to be developed if a new variant is identified at the first opportunity. Even now, it is obvious that booster vaccination rates across the whole UK population, at around 56 per cent, are inadequate and there is little sense of urgency about pushing that closer to herd immunity levels (other than allowing post-infection immunity to climb up).

If the pandemic experience since March 2020 proves anything, it is that readiness and resilience are the keys to an effective response. That means a close and vigilant eye trained on infection rates and the emergence of variants of concern. The apparatus to do this – testing and extensive surveys by the Office for National Statistics – is now being dismantled.

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For weeks Mr Johnson has been making casual announcements and dropping hints about “living with Covid” without any of his medical or scientific advisers by his side. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance have been conspicuous by their absence. They have been silent for weeks. Other Sage committee members have stated that the prime minister’s announcement earlier this month about testing and self-isolation had not even been discussed by Sage when Mr Johnson mentioned his commitment to end all Covid restrictions faster than planned at Prime Minister’s Questions.

It will be interesting to hear what the experts say about the proposals when they are formally confirmed. Cautious as they are about public dissent, they will probably defer to Mr Johnson on matters of public policy, including the costs to the Treasury, but they may well make clear their own coded misgivings about the danger of complacency.

“Living with Covid” should mean individuals taking necessary precautions and the government making sure, through an appropriate mix of guidance, law and sanctions, that the community as a whole is protected. Past “freedom days” have been hastily cancelled or reversed when a new variant of the coronavirus has made its presence felt, and the sad fact is that this latest attempt to live life “normally” may end as messily as its predecessors. Plan B could be needed again.

Many will make their own minds up about the risks they wish to run on their own behalf and on behalf of others.