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Twelve months ago, as a battle raged in Downing Street over whether to order a breaker lockout, Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance issued a stern public warning that England was heading towards 200 deaths per day by November unless action is taken.
This was widely viewed as a shocking and unacceptable figure. As it happens, Boris Johnson finally gave in to the inevitable six weeks later, on October 31, by ordering a one-month lockdown.
When Whitty and Vallance gave that disturbing press conference, daily deaths from the virus were less than 30.
As Johnson presented this year’s fall and winter plan on Tuesday, the death toll had consistently been above 100 for more than three weeks, with little public outcry or political commentary.
This public tranquility is part of why the government feels emboldened to move forward with what it calls Plan A – booster shots for those over 50, immunizing 12 to 15 year olds and counseling the public to be careful – rather than taking harsher action now.
Johnson acknowledged that measured on cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the situation is worse than in 2020; but insisted that the high vaccination rates meant the country was “incomparably better positioned” to weather the coming winter than it was last year.
Indeed, despite some alarming data, Johnson and his No.10 team remain relatively optimistic.
Their decision to go ahead with the reopening of a big bang in July has been widely seen as a gamble – and ridiculed as ‘reckless’ by Labor – but cautious public behavior has helped contain the upsurge in cases. well below the 100,000 per day that Sajid Javid had suggested was possible.
Johnson and other ministers now recite their favorite new line of attack on every occasion: “If it depended on Keir Starmer, we would still be locked out.” “
This helps explain why, like at so many other times throughout the pandemic, instead of taking a precautionary approach, the government now prefers to reserve more stringent measures. As the Prime Minister said: “We are now maintaining our strategy: in essence, we will continue. “
Downing Street insiders were also encouraged by advice suggesting that, with vaccine protection now high, modest changes well short of a lockdown could make a big difference – and by evidence that the informed public is smartly adjusting his behavior when advised to do so.
Johnson’s deep-seated skepticism about restrictions on daily living also comes into the picture. He is both ideologically suspicious of restrictions on public freedom and – according to Dominic Cummings at least – not even convinced of the evidence that the blockades work.
Admittedly, when asked if the government could reimpose the advice on teleworking at Tuesday’s press conference for example – one of the interventions suggested by Sage advisers – the PM warmly underlined the benefits of teleworking. back to the office and “social capital” that brings.
And in his opening statement, he boasted that England now has “one of the freest societies and one of the most open economies in Europe”.
But as the document released alongside Tuesday’s announcement made clear, the government is well aware that it may need to take action if the situation deteriorates – the deciding factor, like last year, being whether the NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed.
In addition to defining a range of emergency measures, including making masks mandatory and imposing mandatory vaccine passports, the fall and winter plan repeatedly highlights potential challenges ahead.
“There remains considerable uncertainty and the scenarios which place the NHS under extreme and unsustainable pressure remain plausible,” he said at one point. To another: “The nature of the virus makes it impossible to give guarantees. “
It makes clear the criteria the government will use to make that decision, with hospital admissions being the key measure alongside other measures, including vaccine effectiveness and the link between hospitalizations and deaths.
All of this makes it a more blunt and revealing document than the plans the government released in the early stages of the crisis, suggesting that thinking within government has evolved dramatically over the past 12 months.
Yet in other ways, the dynamic is strikingly reminiscent of a year ago, when Whitty and Vallance hit the airwaves: pundits warning of a tough winter ahead and the Prime Minister stubbornly clinging to it. plan A – for now at least.
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