Neil Hall/EPA/Bloomberg/ Getty
As “Liberation Day” recedes into the future, it feels like we’re trapped in an endless limbo — something between Purgatory and that bit in a horror film where the characters are all laughing in relief at finally being safe, but you know there’s still half an hour to go.
Most of the vulnerable have been vaccinated, and weekly deaths are still below the five-year average. Over the past week, an average of 10 people died from Covid-19 every day in the UK, a drop of 9% on the week before’s toll. Although each death is a human tragedy, we would not normally reorganise society on this scale to prevent 3,560 deaths per year.
Numbers of cases (by positive tests) and admissions to hospital are rising, but from a very low point. The ONS estimates that in England and Scotland just under 1 in 500 people had Covid in the week ending 5 June. Prevalence in Wales and Northern Ireland is much lower.
“We have seen an increase in cases as lockdown measures have loosened, but this has not been the same across all age groups,” says Professor Jennifer Rogers, a member of the Royal Statistical Society Covid-19 Task Force. “The week ending 6 June saw an overall increase in Covid-19 cases compared to the week before, but this was an increase of 124% in the 20-29 age group compared to an increase of 27% among those aged 60+.” She doesn’t think this rise in cases among the young should in itself be cause for concern:
“The younger age groups are more likely to be unvaccinated (or have received only one dose) and arguably they are also more likely to be heading to the pubs socialising with their friends. We probably shouldn’t be too surprised that we have seen an increase in cases, but we know that this younger age group also has the lowest risk if they do catch Covid-19, so an increase in cases shouldn’t necessarily mean a subsequent increase in hospitalisations and deaths.”
Unlike last autumn, when there wasn’t much we could do in the face of rising cases, other than staying away from each other, the continuing vaccination programme means we can now expect things to get better, not worse. Over half the adult population has double-dose protection, including over 95% of the over 70s, for whom Covid-19 bears the highest risk of causing death or acute illness.
So why has the Government decided to defer freeing us from measures that are, at best, annoying and, at worst, devastating to whole sectors of the economy and society? There are two answers to this, a scientific one and a political one, though in practice it’s hard to separate them.
The scientific one is that, although the current figures for deaths and hospitalisations look better than the predictions upon which the roadmap was based, the near future is still very uncertain. All the models used to plan the roadmap are full of caveats about assumptions, as they should be. Among the things that they foresaw changing were new variants (which might be more transmissible and/or evade immunity), seasonal factors, and human behaviour.
All viruses mutate into new variants. That’s a fact of life. But it makes models of their future behaviour provisional. If the current variant spreads fast enough, and evades enough immune systems — either the previously infected or the vaccinated — models drawn up in February could look optimistic.
Then again, vaccine uptake and effectiveness (especially against death and severe illness) look better than the conservative assumptions made at the end of 2020. By March, Sage advisors were revising their predictions downwards. It was always expected that there would be a third wave of infections this summer, putting more people in hospital and sending some to their deaths. But still, we can’t know how bad the third wave will be.
Three separate institutions drew up new models for Sage in early June, all giving a range of predicted outcomes depending on variants, vaccines and policy options. At best, they foresee a rise in infections similar to January, but mainly among the young, with hospital beds occupied on a similar scale to November 2020, and deaths kept to a few hundred per day. At worst, they predict a repeat of January’s peak death rate. That outcome may not be the most likely, but the scientists modelling possible outcomes have put it into their reports.
This is where the question becomes a political one. A decision taken now could lead to tens of thousands of deaths in the next few months — or inflict pointless damage to tens of thousands of lives in order to save a small number of them. The continuance of restrictions may not bother those happy working from home and socialising outdoors; but for many who work in hospitality, the arts and entertainment, it could be a fatal hammer blow to their working lives. Social distancing rules make many businesses unviable.
Too long a delay to the final Step 4 of unlocking could even result in more deaths in the medium term, as some infections are pushed into autumn and winter. As the LSHTM Interim Roadmap Assessment comments, “even the 2 or 5 week delay to Step 4 can result in modest increases in morbidity and mortality when measured until the end of the year as more cases are pushed back into the autumn”.
If you are in government, faced with massive uncertainty from your scientific advisors, and potentially massive impacts whichever course you decide, what are you supposed to do? You could take a principled decision to do what you reasonably think will have the best outcome, accepting that you can’t control the actual outcome — but will be held accountable in any case. Or you could consider what policy will minimise the chance of your being blamed for a very bad outcome. You could look at what the public thinks you should do.
Every time the Government announces new restrictive measures, or decides to extend existing restrictions, some of us object, on the grounds that the measures are disproportionate to the real dangers of Covid, or are more harmful to the fabric of society than alternative measures (supporting people to self-isolate, for example). Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to object.
But the truth is that the majority of Britons have supported the lockdown measures. Yes, that expressed support may go along with a certain amount of common-sense rule-bending, but in-principle objection is a minority position. A snap survey by YouGov, following the Liberation Day announcement, showed that 70% of the English population supported the extended restrictions. Older people were the most supportive, but it was a majority across all age groups.
Given that public sentiment, what government would dare go ahead with a policy that might be seen to lead to another wave of Covid deaths?
The trouble is, we haven’t done nearly enough rational assessment of the harms and benefits of anti-Covid strategies. Invoking the idea of existential risk to push us all into complying with behavioural rules got the Government a free pass for policies that, in normal times, would have been unthinkable. Critics of specific measures were easily lumped in with conspiracy theorists who said the whole thing was a hoax, or “just the flu”. Suggesting that baton-charging sunbathers in parks was counter-productive provoked cries of “How many people do you want to die!?”
But there is also a danger that we’ll come to see the world only through the prism of risk, whether quantifiable or existential. If no level of risk is acceptable, why not surrender our everyday freedoms forever? When will we ever reach the point of it being safe to take off the masks and sit next to a stranger? When they first announced a lockdown in March 2020, the UK government turned on the tap of fear, but I don’t think they realised how hard it would be to turn off.
Until Covid came along, that falling appetite for taking risks was a soft cultural slide. Parents worried about letting their children play outside unsupervised (as they probably did at the same age) and then worried about their child’s mental health when their social lives moved online. Intimacy was something that the young, especially, liked to postpone, preferring more casual relationships, and mediation though technology. Why risk the awkwardness of telephone conversations, when you can text instead? Culture, from comedy to Young Adult literature, was trying to be less edgy and more inclusive, by avoiding material that might make somebody uncomfortable.
Covid is a real danger. It has killed millions worldwide, and it is far from over. It is reasonable to be afraid, and reasonable to take measures against it. But it’s not reasonable to expect a government to save every single person from it. It’s not reasonable to sacrifice every other social value to save every possible life.
Unfortunately, the Government’s authoritarian response to this deadly disease has been welcomed by a population that values protection above all. And having once offered itself as the strong, paternalistic shield against Covid, the Government will find it hard to back away.
Is there any hope for a citizenry so fearful, so averse to taking risks, so willing to give up liberty in return for safety?
There is one counter-example in recent history. A narrow majority of us willingly chose the riskier path in voting to take Britain into an unknown future, against expert advice and government warnings of financial loss and social chaos. Back in 2016, there was an appetite for taking a risk in the name of higher values — democracy, sovereignty, a sense of agency in an unpredictable world.
A country that voted for Brexit surely can’t be completely ready to give up all control over everyday life for ever.
Timandra Harkness presents the BBC Radio 4 series, FutureProofing and How To Disagree. Her book, Big Data: Does Size Matter? is published by Bloomsbury Sigma.
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SubscribeThe title of this article is “We are Hostages to Government Fear,” but really we’re hostages to the internet. If SARS-cov2 had arrived twenty years ago we wouldn’t have had the option of working from home and we’d have had no choice but to protect the most vulnerable as best we could but otherwise take sensible precautions and just get on with life.
I’m also not sure the situation is quite as bad as the author suggests. It appears the Brits are comfortable with another four weeks of restrictions but at some point most people’s patience will wear thin. And the 600lb gorilla in the room is the economy. A very big bill is due and when it arrives people’s attention will turn to the economy, not more lockdowns.
And with the internet came the offloading of personal responsibility and the irrational deferment to scientists and so-called experts.
The push towards a bigger and fatter state (thanks EU!), has resulted in scientists and experts who face no personal risk to the predictions of doom and subsequent overreaction, in fact, they benefit from it. We have a stratum of society holding the reigns, serving themselves, and investing in the increasing level of infantilism and stupification of society.
What is even more incredible, is due to the internet, how their constant stream of failed predictions is swamped by more, increasingly outlandish, and preposterous predictions of yet more future doom.
I agree. Your second paragraph reflects the views of one of the wisest men on earth, Thomas Sowell. It is obvious when pointed out, but nothing will ever change and that is because democracy is failing us. As Plato said, democracy effectively results in idiots being put in charge. I agree about the internet, which has whipped up hysteria similar to that in. Salem in 1692.
The Mail and The Express and endless years of TV soap-Opera with its faux emotionalizing have contributed far more to the stupification of masses of peolple than the Internet. The Intrnet contains far more truth than the above organs, if you do but have the discriminating faculties to winnow it out.
I wondered what the question was that was asked for the poll. I imagine the response would have been different if conditionals were added:
1. Would you support lockdown if furlough finance finished on June 21?
2. Would you support lockdown if It meant you lost your job?
3. Would you support lockdown if your local pub closed as a consequence?
4. Would you support lockdown if you had suspicious symptoms but could not get a face-to-face doctor assessment?
I make this points as these are the actual situations facing many people due to lockdown. Decisions are being made on the narrowest of parameters. The politicians are not taking the brave choices that entail risk.
Exactly. As shown in an episode of that great comedy (or documentary?) “Yes Minister” you can always rig an opinion poll by choosing carefully the wording of the questions!
I would start by throwing out any work produced by academics whose departments are funded by the Chinese Communist Party.
We need to go further than that. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address, saying, “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.” Did anybody listen? Certainly not the politicians.
Its time for civil disobedience and then vote them out asap.
There’s too many in the top of the government that cannot be trusted.
Vote them out and replace them with …?
That’s the thing isn’t it. I’m just coming to the conclusion that politician and government job descriptions have expanded way too far. We seem to have arrived in a place where a few people have too much power and too little competence but we, the public, kep looking to them and expect them to be able to fix everything in our lives. They can’t. If ever something was an advert for render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s then this is it. Govt should be a mechanism for providing essential services and pooling resources, nothing more. Controlling every aspect of our lives because they think, and we think, that’s how we’ll stop anything bad ever happening to us, is like being in a state of perpetual infantilism.
I do so agree! I’m all in favour of small government and have a great fear of totalitarianism: scribbling “a plague o’ both your houses” on the ballot paper is now a real possibility come the next election.
With a captured mainstream media, scientists who’ve morphed into politicians, corporate giants making record amounts of cash, and spineless ‘leaders’ at the helm, I’m afraid to say it’s ‘game over’.
This never ends. It only gets worse.
The moment a crack seems to appear–will Fauci be sacked?–and predictions of the ‘house of cards’ tumbling start to flutter around, *bang* the next crisis will be unleashed.
Either a brand new variant with a scary name.
Or, the BIG one. The inevitable market crash will be ‘allowed’ to happen–the forces staving it off will just be turned off. Then, in that new pandemonium, the already Huge stack of unanswered allegations of corruptions will just get buried under a thousand more.
And Big Government will be there to save the day. We’ll get all sorts of Emergency Payments. Trillions will printed. And, just like that, the government will ‘take responsibility’ for everything, and we’ll Never Get Our Freedom Back.
-OR-
We just say enough.
Excellent piece exploring all the nuances here.
A further thought, much like that they wont touch the NHS, I wonder if the fact that it’s a Tory government also plays a part.
Whilst we have seen nothing from Labour to suggest they’d do different – or in fact even more – perhaps the Tories are too cautious to fulfil their role as the “nasty” party and so have been more cautious than they would have been.
Edmund Burke described the present situation perfectly: “it is in our nature, when we do not know what will happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen, and hence it is, that uncertainty is so terrible, that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of certain mischief.” We have an incompetent government, using incompetent scientific advisors, and hysteria spread through all form of media.
You’d have thought not. But the polls don’t lie. Or do they?
To be fair, this disease did originate in China under suspicious circumstances. And I am an anti- lockdown/ anti mask proponent , I too was surprised how quickly it changed shape in India and spread like wildfire. People are spooked. They are spooked worldwide. The governments are unprepared for such an engineered virus. Even though lockdown doesn’t help, it is a way of the public saying “you screw8d up, you deal with it”.
But what is most true is that we are NOT in a normal natural world of risk any more. Escaped virus, record time vaccines to vaccinate the WHOLE world, mega tech companies for social & business & who have huge control over what we say. We are in an unusual era.
We who crave for liberty and talk of fearlessness, uncensored freedoms are of dying culture. And even more alarming is that this is a worldwide shift.
Creativity is ever more vital then.
We in the west have societies of old people, gerontosocieties. When I was in school we were preached about overpopulation, now we have quiet neighbourhoods, without the sound of children. We substituted children for idiotic pets and refer to them as people. And we are afraid. That’s how we think about the unknown, we fear it. Say what you will about Muslims in Europe ( and I have little nice to say about them) but at least they look into the future and have children.
Very insightful comment.
We’re all in this together — forever.
I think Boris has been against lockdowns from the start, it’s why I think those decisions have been somewhat less snappy than some would have liked. That is why I think these decisions are not really down to him, I think he is overriding his natural instincts to defer to what Whitty et al are telling him, under sufferance. The weird thing is, at the start Chris Whitty very eloquently explained basically the Swedish approach. They stuck to their guns, we didn’t. I sometimes wonder if they know something about this virus that we don’t which makes it more unpredictable (man made), or if there is some other pressure being brought to bear on this that will not be made fully public but is being deliberately drip fed to manipulate us into compliance (great reset). Or am I overthinking this and they really all are irredeemably evil charlatans out to ruin our lives to line their own pockets and are sitting in some No.10 office rubbing their hands with glee. Sorry I know for some people that’s the default position but it doesn’t persuade me. Politics is an ugly business and all it proves to me is that too much power in too few hands is never a good thing.
Interesting in this context to read the reply of the ethics commission in relation to the fear tactics accusation of the government:
The ethics of behavioural messaging during the covid-19 pandemic
The Ethics Committee of the BPS has reviewed and considered the above issue raised with the society.
On 5 February we issued a statement in response to emails detailing similar concerns. This response continues to be the BPS position.
Covid-19 is an extremely serious public health issue. The response to the pandemic is clearly a matter of social as well as individual concern. Indirect behavioural interventions are commonly employed in public health campaigns in order to safeguard the population. Given the scale of the mortality and morbidity caused by the pandemic the behavioural interventions employed by the UK Government have been proportionate and necessary.
The Ethics Committee believed that the contributions of psychologists in responding to the pandemic was entirely consistent with the BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct, demonstrating social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise.
The Committee also emphasised how psychologists’ shared values of respect, competence, responsibility and integrity will be vital in supporting the long-term recovery from the pandemic at both the individual and societal levels.
Kind regards
BPS Ethical Enquiries Team
Possible reply:
Dear Dr Roger Paxton, Chair of the BPS Ethics Committee,
This reply worries me very much: is this the end of real democracy?
Your answer suggests that the end justifies the means. That is a very dangerous position. I am sure I do not have to explain to you why.
I think it is much more ethical to work with shared values and integrity as you suggest in your last paragraph, to approach a serious public health issue.
Note, and research is suggesting this more and more, that the public health issue is indeed a new virus but much more the state of health of the population. (and this was know from the beginning)
From an ethical point of view the government should have:
Your reply is a political statement to avoid embarrassment of the government. If ethics means: I know and I tell you what you should do: it is time for you to put on your fascist uniform.
Your reply has no value in ethics. I am flabbergasted.