It’s time to lift the lockdown completely as normal life is worth the risk
MOST of us aren’t great at accepting bad news. But it looks like this country has trouble accepting GOOD news.
In recent months, the UK has seen a vaccine rollout scheme of which we should be incredibly proud.
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As of yesterday, more than 33million people have had their first dose and an amazing 10.4million — three-quarters of those over 75 — have had two doses.
It is an extraordinary achievement. Everyone who helped make it possible should feel immensely proud. But last week the Prime Minister issued an extraordinary warning.
He said we should not fall into the mistake of thinking vaccines are the reason why cases have fallen so steeply. The lockdown is the reason for that.
The resulting sound was like a balloon deflating. Of course, it coincided with the latest lifting of lockdown rules.
In fact, it came at exactly the moment pubs and restaurants were allowed to reopen for customers seated outside.
The timing was not a coincidence. It seemed like the Prime Minister was trying to warn people to be careful. Not to take risks. And not to imagine that just because the beer gardens were open again we should forget about the virus.
But the public aren’t stupid. We have been told for more than a year that safe, workable vaccines are the route out of this virus and lockdown. Now the vaccine comes along and we are told we might have to stick in lockdown anyway.
It is the same with mask policy. Will we ever be allowed to take them off? Are we meant to wear them until nobody anywhere in the world has Covid?
As the lockdown measures continue to slowly lift across the UK — and Boris insisted last night he had no plans to “deviate from the roadmap” — we are going to have to keep an eye on this inability to accept good news.
For the news IS good. On Monday there were just four fatalities recorded in the UK as a result of Covid.
That is an extraordinary figure. It reflects a colossal fall-off in the number of people in hospital.
As Health Secretary Matt Hancock said when he appeared before the Commons’ health select committee, across the UK there are now 2,186 people in hospital with Covid — down 94 per cent from last year’s peak.
But instead of banking this success and moving on, he moved straight on to a warning: That we need to see what the impact is of this “significant” reopening of pub and restaurant gardens last week.
Of course our officials should keep an eye on developments as our country reopens. But we cannot talk about it as if the final aim is a zero-risk society. Such a society is not possible.
Businesses must reopen. Hospitals must perform the operations delayed over the past year. The Government cannot keep borrowing at current levels.
Life has to begin to return to normal. The sort of talk we heard from Johnson and Hancock means people will stay scared — or simply stop listening to them.
As it happens, Monday’s figures allow us some much-needed perspective.
According to the Department for Transport, the UK averages five deaths a day from RTA. That’s not a virus. It means road traffic accident.
We all know driving a car can be dangerous. But we accept a level of risk when we get into any vehicle, whether as driver or passenger.
Past government campaigns to get us to wear seatbelts greatly reduced the number of deaths on the road. Campaigns to stop drink driving had a similar effect.
But imagine the impact if, after those campaigns, the government of the time denied that seatbelts or stopping drink-driving caused the fall-off in road deaths.
It might be true that if nobody got into any car, we could get the figure down further. But what would we, the public, be expected to do?
Perhaps some people would be scared of ever getting into a vehicle again. Others might only get into a car if they were wearing a crash helmet.
On the roads, we accept there are things we can do to keep ourselves and others safe.
But we accept that cars must keep running and the roads must stay open.
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This is truer still with the country as a whole. We cannot live forever in a country too scared to return to normal.
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We must reacquaint ourselves with limited risk. We, and the Government in particular, must remember that good news cannot be a prelude to more fear.
Good news must be a prelude to more freedom. And more quickly.