Covid restrictions have gone on for too long

We can’t carry on like this. We can’t keep resurrecting restrictions every time a new Covid variant emerges. We can’t keep suspending certain liberties whenever this blasted virus mutates. Somehow we have got stuck in a spiral of doom and kneejerk authoritarianism, and we urgently need to find a way out of it.

People, of course, will say it’s only mask-wearing in shops and on buses. It’s only a PCR test if you’re coming back from overseas. It’s only mandatory quarantine if you come into contact with someone infected with the Omicron variant. These are hardly onerous regulations. And Boris says they’ll be temporary. They will be reviewed in three weeks’ time. So calm down, yeah?

This misses the point. First, because if the past 20 months tell us anything, it is that temporary Covid regulations have a nasty habit of lasting for longer than we were told they would. Lockdowns linger, emergency laws stick around, Sadiq Khan tells Londoners to carry on masking up on public transport regardless of what central government says.