Coronavirus

Welcome to ‘freedom day’, or more properly ‘chaos day’ – with businesses warning they can’t operate because too many employees are being ‘pinged’ and told to isolate, and the clinically extremely vulnerable terrified to leave their homes for fear no one will be wearing a mask. The funny thing is that all this madness was foreseeable. Because, as the PM himself said only a week ago, the surge in infections is almost exactly what his epidemiological advisers on Sage have been forecasting. But the government is behaving as though all this mess is just an accident, one of those things. It wasn’t. It was the choice of Boris Johnson and

A very strange ‘freedom day’ greets us on Monday. Legally, almost all restrictions will be lifted. But practically, ministers are deeply worried by the surge of the Indian variant and the rise of hospitalisations to around 600 a day — a figure that will probably double according to the Bristol University PCCF project (which we at The Spectator find to be the most reliable). Hence this massive fudge: the government abolishing the mask mandate but saying it ‘expects’ people to wear them in shops and crowded spaces nonetheless. The NHS will continue to mandate them in hospitals. Then perhaps the biggest surprise: the vaccine passport U-turn whereby companies are told

In another sign of the government’s more cautious approach to the July 19 unlocking, Sajid Javid has just told the Commons that government guidance will encourage large venues to use ‘certification’ – in other words, proof of vaccination or a negative test – to determine who is admitted, that those working from home should return to their offices gradually and that masks will be expected to be worn on public transport. This guidance is, obviously, not the same as law but it is a clear sign that the government wants people to carry on behaving cautiously after July 19. It is a long way away from any kind of ‘freedom

Is the government having a wobble over ‘Freedom Day’ on 19 July? Well, for one thing you won’t hear ministers talking about ‘Freedom Day’ over the next week. Instead, they are preferring to focus on the need for people to be very cautious, given the soaring numbers of cases and hospitalisations. When he appeared on Times Radio this morning, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi talked far more about what would still be ‘expected’ of people after 19 July than about how the roadmap was working and how nice it was for life to be returning to normal. For him, this date seems to be more ‘Be very careful day’. For Nadhim

The long-awaited easing of restrictions will not be the triumphant moment that many expected back in May. The Delta variant has seen to that. Increasing infection numbers have made the government nervous about the reopening. From 19 July, ministers will be busy trying to look responsible — consciously putting on their masks in crowded spaces — instead of being photographed gleefully enjoying the return of various freedoms. If case numbers are, as Boris Johnson has predicted they might be, at 50,000 a day and rising on 19 July — and even the double-vaccinated still have to isolate for ten days if they come into contact with an infected person (which

Shortly before Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer were slugging it out in PMQs — debating whether the mass-lifting of restrictions on 19 July is indeed a good idea — the Office for National Statistics released their latest antibody survey, the details of which support the Prime Minister’s argument for reopening. It is now estimated that roughly nine in ten adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland had antibodies in the week beginning 14 June (eight out of ten in Scotland). Moreover, antibody prevalence is on the rise in younger age groups. The percentage of adults testing positive for antibodies aged 35 and older ranges between 94 per cent and 99 per