Boris’s clash over masks

‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme,’ the free market economist Milton Friedman famously noted. So just how permanent will social distancing measures be? As more positive news about vaccines and their distribution rolls in, it will be a question that grows louder: how much longer will we be asked to live with Covid rules, and might anyone make the case for keeping them in place after the virus is under control?

We caught a glimpse of the different opinions circling Whitehall tonight, when the Prime Minister and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam clashed over the future of mask-wearing. During the Covid press conference, the Sun asked Van-Tam if masks and hand sanitiser might become a staple in our ‘new normal’ way of living: ‘I think those kinds of habits that clearly stop the spread of other respiratory viruses, such as flu,’ he responded, ‘will perhaps persist for many years, and that may be a good thing if they do.’