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UK Unlocks
After a year of being hit by three waves of Coronavirus and three successive lockdowns the British Government this week set out its ‘irreversible’ roadmap for a return to normality. As a case study for a country who has had a terrible death rate, huge economic shock and yet an inspiring vaccination programme the policies that the UK has agreed on to chart its way out of the pandemic will be a point of reference for the rest of the planet. UK
Four stages governed by four indicators with enough time in between each to ascertain the effect of the easing. It will take from the 8th of March to the 21st of June and even after that four-month period has elapsed some ways of life, such as mask wearing, may endure. Interwoven into this period are four ‘reviews’ into vaccine passports, mass events, possibilities for travel and social distancing.
It’s not clear whether the numbers of moments have been synchronised to help people remember them but four by four by four it is. The scientific strategy behind the roadmap is based on living with Covid in the same way we live with the flu and other endemic diseases. We can’t get to ‘zero Covid’ but we can – using the vaccines but also the various treatments that have come online – better protect people from it. UK
Already the vaccine has been rolled out to some 18 million adults, trials are ongoing to see if children can safely have it and the plans are to have all British adults ‘jabbed’ by the end of July. The early data from real world vaccine use shows that it reduces both transmission and the severity of the disease, even for elderly people most at risk. Suddenly the rate of infection and the dreaded ‘R’ number that determined whether the disease was spreading, is less relevant as the odds of getting seriously ill and needing hospital care or dying from it recede.
The political strategy has pivoted from Prime Minister Johnson’s earlier efforts to unlock, and rather than pushing for incentives for people to return to shops or their offices, there is a focus on being able to see friends, family and play sport in the short term. Perhaps the incredibly low rates at which the Government can borrow money has left them deciding that it is better to emerge from the pandemic with an employed and relatively happy population rather than one struggling both mentally and physically after months of sustained separation.
Yet there is political pressure around the speed of what has roundly been agreed to be a ‘cautious’ unlocking. Prime Minister Johnson has explained that his policies are driven by “data not dates” although the population and businesses alike are now using the dates to make huge decisions about their year ahead. UK
Members of his own party, described as ‘lockdown sceptics’, ask the question that if the vaccine protects the most vulnerable and its uptake has been so comprehensive what are the reasons for moving so slowly and holding back so much from a return to ‘normal’. Several answers follow, one being that whilst many have had the vaccine, many have not and the effectivity of the various ones on offer is not 100%. The Government’s own modelling suggests that even this cautious unlocking could likely result in an extra 30,000 deaths, yet such are the epic scale of the casualties so far that the number hasn’t made the headlines in the same way that celebration of schools or restaurants reopening has. UK
Despite the Prime Minister describing the unlocking as ‘one way’ and ‘irreversible’, in a subsequent press conference he admitted that future restrictions could come back. Indeed, the single biggest unknown that could scupper the roadmap that the UK has laid out is a more transmissible virus variant emerging that is able to avoid the protections offered by the vaccines. Although this is unlikely the fact that there are over 115,000 new Covid cases daily at present means it is a scenario very much worth imagining.
To counter this potential risk there is already talk of the RNA vaccines being repurposed and ‘booster’ jabs being offered to those seriously at risk. In short, it would seem that the British public better prepare itself for a rolling period of vaccines and top ups especially ahead of the winters for the next few years. Such protections come at the cost of being able to share and distribute the virus beyond the UK’s own borders which of course then limit the ability to stamp down on potential variants.
Therefore whilst the UK continues to follow its own roadmap it is of considerable urgency that the global strategy appears clearer and more resourced, something that was tackled to some extent at the recent (virtual) G7 but that remains far from settled. UK
James Denselow levant
