There is little to celebrate in today’s first anniversary since Britain went into lockdown, but Boris Johnson did try his best to mark it with a positive message about what was to come. The Prime Minister held a press conference in Downing Street this evening where he told the public that he wanted to ‘to thank everybody for their courage, your courage, discipline and patience’, and promised that the government was on track to meet its vaccination targets. He closed by saying: ‘And cautiously but irreversibly, step by step, jab by jab, this country is on the path to reclaiming our freedoms.’
One question that clearly haunts Johnson is whether today really should have been the anniversary of lockdown
It was striking that he wanted to look forward, speaking about much of the pandemic in the past perfect tense, even though it is very much still happening. Even more striking was that both he and chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, warned that there would be another surge of the virus soon.
Johnson, Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance were all clear that there was almost zero chance of ever achieving ‘zero Covid’ and that society would merely learn to live with the virus.
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