James Kirkup James Kirkup

The madness of the Covid Christmas amnesty

(Photo: Getty)

London will enter Tier 3 Covid restrictions on Wednesday, because people are mixing too freely and thus spreading a deadly virus. Next week, those restrictions will vanish for five days, allowing people to mix more freely, thus spreading a deadly virus.

The paragraph above captures just how frankly stupid the Christmas Covid amnesty policy is. Much of 2020 has been a real-life experiment in epidemiology, proving – not that it’s necessary – that when you relax restrictions put in place to slow the spread of a disease, that disease spreads more quickly.

That was the story of the summer and early autumn: England’s second lockdown was an inevitable and logical consequence of summer relaxations aimed at getting life back to normal (remember that week the Government tried to get us all to go back to the office?).

The rising caseload in London is an equally predictable (and predicted: I heard someone in government talking about the inevitability of Tier 3 for London almost two weeks ago) result of relaxations after Lockdown 2.0.

So what does anyone think will happen after five days of unrestricted travel and household mixing? Anyone who yelps with surprise and dismay about the death toll and restrictions that will define the national conversation in January should be ignored utterly, just as someone who complains that night follows day should be dismissed.

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