So our pathetic government appear to have decided that all Covid-19 restrictions will be removed in two weeks time, as part of the plan to save Boris’s skin. Basically they seem to be saying that Covid is over, the case numbers are falling rapidly, there’s no longer any need to isolate, and we can all go back to normal. [1,2] Essentially this says “we don’t care; go back to normal; if you get Covid well tough luck, but it is now only a cold so continue going to work and spreading the disease further”.

Let’s look at this.

1. Of course the government reported case numbers are falling; they’re designed to. People are being urged to go back to work, and testing is not being pushed. There is now no requirement to get a confirmatory PCR test following a positive LFT; and there’s no requirement to log the result of a LFT; so testing has dropped off a cliff – people just aren’t bothering. So as the government reports only confirmed positive tests, of course their numbers are falling.
2. However this does not accord with data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS; a government body) who do random sampling of the population. Nor does it agree with the data from the Zoe Covid Study, who track reports from their 4 million subscribers. [3,4,5] The Zoe study is showing rates still incredibly high at around 200K/day (as it was at the beginning of January) and the ONS data is tracking this fairly closely. That means around 1 in 25 people currently have Covid [5] and anything up to 10% of those are re-infections [3,5].

But it is worse than this …

3. Going back to normal, means no testing and no isolation. So people will be walking around with Covid as they think they have a bad cold (or are even asymptomatic), they’ll keep travelling and going to work/school, and spreading infection. Many will be forced back to work as many employers won’t tolerate time off sick with a cold (which is in itself stupid, but part of the “work at all costs” ethic).
4. More people walking about spreading infection means that the number of cases will rise, as will hospitalisations and deaths. And because there’s no testing the government won’t know, until hospitalisations, deaths or school absences start climbing out of control. But by then it is too late; the genie is out of the bottle. (Remember that hospitalisations and deaths lag behind infection by 2, 4 or even more weeks.)
5. That in turn puts the vulnerable at even greater risk. And many vulnerable people (like me) are feeling even more that they’re condemned to “house arrest” because they dare not risk going out and getting infected.
6. It also means more children off school, or having their education impacted because their teachers are sick.
7. And the higher the rate of infection, the higher the number of cases of Long Covid which will severely impact the patient’s life for … well we don’t know how long!
8. More infection also means the virus has even greater opportunities to mutate. That’s the way evolution works. These new variants may be less or more infectious, and/or cause more or less severe infection. And again we wouldn’t know, because there’s no testing.
9. All this is compounded in that immunity wanes. We know that the good immunity provided following two vaccinations was falling off rapidly after 6 months [7]; hence the booster programme. But it does now seem that immunity provided by boosters falls off rapidly too, such that someone like me who had their booster in mid-October (17 weeks ago) now has almost no benefit from it [6]; I’m back where I was last June with a risk of around 4 times the norm [8] (and I’m by no means in the extra-super-mega-vulnerable range). We seem to be needing a new booster every 3 months or so, but there appears to be no plan for this – indeed the current booster programme has effectively stalled [3].
10. According to the BBC “The law will be replaced with guidance … and for example people will be urged not to go to work if they have Covid” [2]. Frankly the government can provide as much guidance, urging and recommendation as it likes, but people are going to take little notice: they need to work and their employers aren’t going to tolerate high levels of absence.

Is it any wonder the vulnerable and the disabled are worried. They feel that the government doesn’t care about them and wants them out of sight and out of (their) mind. (From a personal perspective, friends are going to increasingly not understand of one’s avoidance of social gatherings etc.)

I have seen a number of respected scientists, including some members of Independent SAGE [9], suggesting that the government’s proposed action is nothing less than “criminal negligence”. We don’t know what is round the corner in terms of new variants, so they could well come back and bite us in the bum at any time. And when it does the consequences are going to be a direct result of yet further government failure.

Whether it is actually “criminally negligent” only a court could decide, but I would certainly class it as totally stupid and intensely unethical.

[1] Guardian; 09/02/2022; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/09/covid-rules-axed-england-is-pandemic-end-really-in-sight
[2] BBC News; 09/02/2022; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60319947
[3] Independent SAGE; 04/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21TKKKFfGYo
[4] Zoe Covid Update; 03/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUfjJ1z-a6s
[5] Zoe Covid Update; 10/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Zm9OcULDs
[6] Telegraph; 24/12/2021; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/24/fourth-jabs-possible-covid-booster-immunity-will-fall-millions/
[7] University of Edinburgh; 21/12/2021; https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2021/covid-19-vaccine-protection-wanes-three-months
[8] QCovid Risk Calculator; https://qcovid.org/
[9] Independent SAGE; https://www.independentsage.org/