Learning to live with covid

The war in Ukraine seems to have knocked covid off our front pages for good, despite rapidly rising case number of Omicron, the now dominant strain, and its own emerging variants like Deltacron. So where exactly are we?

Well, for one, we can return to the country from travels abroad absolutely test or special-documentation free. No need any longer to prove vaccination status, endure further PCR or lateral flow tests or even fill out those pesky Passenger Locator Forms, which took an age to complete and no one ever looked at anyway.

All we need to show now when returning to the UK is our passport and, as the holiday season gets underway, our suntan – and that bit’s optional. But here at home, beyond passport control and out on the streets in villages, towns and cities, the changes will have the most visible impact, with no restrictions at all for the majority – we now make our own decisions about covid, based on our own judgement and our own common sense. 

Potentially rash and certainly risky, but Boris Johnson finally seems to have his way with that “take it on the chin” policy he advocated way back when the pandemic first took hold. There remains the cynical argument that the government is being opportunistic with this speedy change of policy, acting swiftly to attract less attention and comment at a time when national and international attention is focused on the horrendous realities of the war.

With graphic images of events in Eastern Europe dominating our screens and newspaper columns it has meant fewer in-depth interviews and detailed questioning of government ministers or spokespersons on the way ahead. And Johnson has long faced pressure from many of his own back benchers as well as industry leaders, particularly in the hospitality and entertainment sectors, to end all restrictions. Now he has. 

But Covid-19 in its various guises is still here and is not going away any time soon, and experts warn that the absence of restrictions will make it more difficult to track the country’s continuing epidemic and understand precisely what is happening and why.

New data shows that the daily UK covid cases are surging by around 50% with a “worrying” increase among the vulnerable and elderly. And one covid expert, Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, has said he is concerned that restrictions have been rolled back.

Accusing the government of “wanting to get rid of data and moving on” he told Sky News that the ZOE app, which King’s College works with to record daily covid figures was now being “cancelled”. He said that other surveillance tools have also been given the axe by the government, but that ZOE had agreed to continue funding Kings College until money from elsewhere could be found.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has announced the rolling out fourth vaccine jabs to the over 75s during April and stated that the offer “will at some point” be widened to other groups. Exactly how and when remains to be decided, but there have been suggestions that it will be extended to the over 50s in the autumn.