Simon Clarke

As the Omicron variant makes its way through the population of the UK, the Chief Medical Officer’s warning that we don’t know all that much about the variant, but ‘all the things we do know are bad’ was not what anyone wanted to hear this week. Unfortunately, Chris Whitty is right. The Omicron variant’s assault on the UK has been like a blitzkrieg so far, and it has left a trail of shock and confusion in its wake. It is no wonder that Sage have advised this week that more restrictions may now be needed to prevent a rapid rise in hospitalisations. There is still a lot we don’t know about Omicron, but we have been able to build up a partial picture of the variant.

Boris Johnson announced a new raft of coronavirus measures on Saturday, after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected in the UK. Face masks will soon be made mandatory in shops and on public transport and  PCR tests compulsory for those travelling to the UK. These new restrictions were revealed less than half a week after health authorities in South Africa informed the World Health Organisation of the discovery of the new Covid-19 variant, designated B.1.1.529 and now re-named Omicron. First isolated on 9 November, on Saturday two cases of the virus were detected in Britain, in Essex and Nottinghamshire. Is Boris Johnson right to fear this new variant? In South Africa the appearance of the strain coincided with a steep increase in case numbers.

It’s hard to remember a time when politicians have so publicly put pressure on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Even the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, said this week that the booster programme is his ‘absolute priority’ as it will ‘help us to transition the virus from pandemic to endemic status’. So why is the JCVI so against booster jabs in all but the rarest of cases? My understanding is that its thinking has three parts. First, that the UK has not experienced Israel’s waning immunity against infection because we have had a longer gap between doses.

Boris Johnson introduced a third lockdown last night after an assessment by Britain’s four chief medical officers that the NHS wouldn’t be able to cope within three weeks on present trends. ‘Cases are rising almost everywhere, in much of the country driven by the new, more transmissible, variant,’ the medical officers said in a statement. With Covid caseloads clearly rising in hospitals nationwide, the grounds for action are pretty clear. But how sure can we be that the new variant is to blame?  One question seems to be asked again and again: if the new Covid variant is much more transmissible, why isn’t it rising everywhere? Why just in London and the South East?

‘What’s going on in Swale?’, asked a health journalist who I often speak to. This was back in November. I responded that I didn’t know where Swale is, let alone what its problem was, although I guessed it was most likely something to do with Covid-19. But now, we’re all looking at places like Swale — and much of Kent — and wondering what’s going on.  Back in the summer, the UK government would put countries on the quarantine list when their infections hit 20 per 100,000 residents. In Swale, at the last count, it was 2,600 per 100,000 residents.

After a difficult nine months, we are naturally all sick of lockdowns and other Covid restrictions. Everyone misses parts of their pre-coronavirus lives, from seeing friends and family, to pubs and restaurants, to the theatre and concerts and, yes, even our workplaces. It was therefore no surprise that this week’s news of a vaccine breakthrough was widely applauded. It is human nature, after all, to cling on to things that give us hope. Hope that was encouraged by leading scientists such as Sir John Bell. After the Pfizer news broke, the Oxford professor was asked on BBC radio whether we would be returning to normal by spring. His response? ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ This was a When Harry Met Sally moment that proved to be music to the ears of millions of Britons.

From the very start of the pandemic, modelling projections and empirical data have been twisted to suit different agendas. Fanatics on both sides of the debate have cherry-picked data — whether those demanding tougher restrictions or those on the other side who believe that the virus is harmless and that this is all big fuss over nothing. Cold, detached analysis was an early victim of Covid-19. And so it proved yet again after the Prime Minister’s press conference last Saturday, during which a number of projections were presented showing how the Covid-19 death toll could proceed in the coming weeks. A number of models were used to justify placing England into a second lockdown.

One of the more peculiar features of Covid is just how cleanly the crisis has split us down political lines. As a serving Tory councillor, you may assume that my views on masks, lockdown and the virus are predictable. But I’m also a microbiologist and I’m dismayed by the attitudes of some fellow travellers.  Pandemics, particularly ones involving dangerous viruses like this one, are not merely a question of personal freedom but also of collective responsibility. Of course I desperately want a return to normal life. To be frank, however, I do not think that’s going to happen any time soon. Why? Because the virus is simply too dangerous to be left unchecked.