Why I think scrapping the Covid regulations in the UK is a terrible idea
Almost 7% of the population of England are ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’. What will happen to them now?…
I welcome the relaxation of Covid rules and like everyone else, cannot wait to get back to normality…though there is a BUT…and it’s a big one.
According to government statistics from 22nd May 2021, there are approximately 3.7million people categorized as ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ in England. This accounts for almost 7% of the 55.89million population (not counting Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland*). During the last 14–15 months, they received numerous letters from the government warning against going out unless absolutely essential, socialising, seeing family and friends or even in the beginning going out more than once a day for exercise.
As one of them, I find the decision to completely get rid of covid regulations totally irresponsible and quite frankly, insulting.
According to the data, we are seeing increasing cases of the more harmful and transmissible Delta variant along with a subsequence rise in hospitalisations and most sadly, deaths. We are told that this is now being spread most amongst the younger population and that the vaccines are less effective to this particular variant.
For me, the end of social distancing is welcome but utterly pointless if we are not requiring a negative test and/or proof of double vaccination to attend large public events. Before Covid-19, I used to travel up and down the country following my football team and regularly used to go to festivals, clubs and events. After 19th July if I choose to attend, I will be entering a free-for-all. I will have no idea if the people around me are carrying covid, or if they are vaccinated. I am extremely concerned that I and millions of others will be forced to further miss out on quality of life due to the irresponsible new policy of asking the public to use common sense.
The mental health cost of this pandemic is far from over, many of us will be missing out while healthy friends and family socialise en masse as we choose to isolate for a while longer, rather than risk the disease. In a few months it will be winter when cases will no doubt rocket, so self-isolation could feasibly stretch for another year. By removing every restriction at once we are taking our eye off the ball at a time when new, more dangerous variants will inevitably spring up, allowing them to spread freely without limitation.
I understand that we must re-open — I welcome that. I also understand that it will be my choice as to how much risk I take whenever the restrictions are lifted. For example attending a family BBQ should be fine, there won’t be a bus load of people there and being outside should give plenty of room to keep away if I feel anxious. However I simply cannot make an informed decision on whether to attend an organised public event if the attendees do not need to show a negative test result or double jab “certificate”.
My opinion (for what it’s worth) is total relaxation of the regulations will come at a significant cost. The clinically vulnerable will still be at risk as the vaccine is not 100% effective and currently only 65% of the population of England are double vaccinated, while the plans to abolish restrictions entirely are set to provide less motivation for the remaining 35% to get their jab or report covid symptoms. We will see more strain on the NHS as cases rise and variants go unchecked and I wouldn’t rule out more stringent regulations coming back into force further down the line when we realise we’ve messed up. All this could be mitigated and managed with a planned strategy of opening up while keeping tabs on how the virus is spreading, rather than leaving people’s lives in the hands of the general public in the optimistic hope everyone displays common sense.
We are not out of the woods yet, in fact we are still in the middle with patchy signal and are about to throw away our GPS
I hope I’m wrong…
*This article focuses on the population and regulations for England. At the time of writing, future relaxation of Covid restrictions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have not been announced.
