Most of the vulnerable have been vaccinated, and weekly deaths are still below the five-year average. Over the past week, an average of 10 people died from Covid-19 every day in the UK, a drop of 9% on the week before’s toll. Although each death is a human tragedy, we would not normally reorganise society on this scale to prevent 3,560 deaths per year.

Numbers of cases (by positive tests) and admissions to hospital are rising, but from a very low point. The ONS estimates that in England and Scotland just under 1 in 500 people had Covid in the week ending 5 June. Prevalence in Wales and Northern Ireland is much lower.

“We have seen an increase in cases as lockdown measures have loosened, but this has not been the same across all age groups,” says Professor Jennifer Rogers, a member of the Royal Statistical Society Covid-19 Task Force. “The week ending 6 June saw an overall increase in Covid-19 cases compared to the week before, but this was an increase of 124% in the 20-29 age group compared to an increase of 27% among those aged 60+.” She doesn’t think this rise in cases among the young should in itself be cause for concern:

“The younger age groups are more likely to be unvaccinated (or have received only one dose) and arguably they are also more likely to be heading to the pubs socialising with their friends. We probably shouldn’t be too surprised that we have seen an increase in cases, but we know that this younger age group also has the lowest risk if they do catch Covid-19, so an increase in cases shouldn’t necessarily mean a subsequent increase in hospitalisations and deaths.”

Unlike last autumn, when there wasn’t much we could do in the face of rising cases, other than staying away from each other, the continuing vaccination programme means we can now expect things to get better, not worse. Over half the adult population has double-dose protection, including over 95% of the over 70s, for whom Covid-19 bears the highest risk of causing death or acute illness.

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Will I ever escape lockdown?

By Stephen Pollard

So why has the Government decided to defer freeing us from measures that are, at best, annoying and, at worst, devastating to whole sectors of the economy and society? There are two answers to this, a scientific one and a political one, though in practice it’s hard to separate them.

The scientific one is that, although the current figures for deaths and hospitalisations look better than the predictions upon which the roadmap was based, the near future is still very uncertain. All the models used to plan the roadmap are full of caveats about assumptions, as they should be. Among the things that they foresaw changing were new variants (which might be more transmissible and/or evade immunity), seasonal factors, and human behaviour.

All viruses mutate into new variants. That’s a fact of life. But it makes models of their future behaviour provisional. If the current variant spreads fast enough, and evades enough immune systems — either the previously infected or the vaccinated — models drawn up in February could look optimistic.

Then again, vaccine uptake and effectiveness (especially against death and severe illness) look better than the conservative assumptions made at the end of 2020. By March, Sage advisors were revising their predictions downwards. It was always expected that there would be a third wave of infections this summer, putting more people in hospital and sending some to their deaths. But still, we can’t know how bad the third wave will be.

Three separate institutions drew up new models for Sage in early June, all giving a range of predicted outcomes depending on variants, vaccines and policy options. At best, they foresee a rise in infections similar to January, but mainly among the young, with hospital beds occupied on a similar scale to November 2020, and deaths kept to a few hundred per day. At worst, they predict a repeat of January’s peak death rate. That outcome may not be the most likely, but the scientists modelling possible outcomes have put it into their reports.

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Boris needs to take a risk

By Timandra Harkness

This is where the question becomes a political one. A decision taken now could lead to tens of thousands of deaths in the next few months — or inflict pointless damage to tens of thousands of lives in order to save a small number of them. The continuance of restrictions may not bother those happy working from home and socialising outdoors; but for many who work in hospitality, the arts and entertainment, it could be a fatal hammer blow to their working lives. Social distancing rules make many businesses unviable.

Too long a delay to the final Step 4 of unlocking could even result in more deaths in the medium term, as some infections are pushed into autumn and winter. As the LSHTM Interim Roadmap Assessment comments, “even the 2 or 5 week delay to Step 4 can result in modest increases in morbidity and mortality when measured until the end of the year as more cases are pushed back into the autumn”.

If you are in government, faced with massive uncertainty from your scientific advisors, and potentially massive impacts whichever course you decide, what are you supposed to do? You could take a principled decision to do what you reasonably think will have the best outcome, accepting that you can’t control the actual outcome — but will be held accountable in any case. Or you could consider what policy will minimise the chance of your being blamed for a very bad outcome. You could look at what the public thinks you should do.

Every time the Government announces new restrictive measures, or decides to extend existing restrictions, some of us object, on the grounds that the measures are disproportionate to the real dangers of Covid, or are more harmful to the fabric of society than alternative measures (supporting people to self-isolate, for example). Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to object.

But the truth is that the majority of Britons have supported the lockdown measures. Yes, that expressed support may go along with a certain amount of common-sense rule-bending, but in-principle objection is a minority position. A snap survey by YouGov, following the Liberation Day announcement, showed that 70% of the English population supported the extended restrictions. Older people were the most supportive, but it was a majority across all age groups.

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Given that public sentiment, what government would dare go ahead with a policy that might be seen to lead to another wave of Covid deaths?

The trouble is, we haven’t done nearly enough rational assessment of the harms and benefits of anti-Covid strategies. Invoking the idea of existential risk to push us all into complying with behavioural rules got the Government a free pass for policies that, in normal times, would have been unthinkable. Critics of specific measures were easily lumped in with conspiracy theorists who said the whole thing was a hoax, or “just the flu”. Suggesting that baton-charging sunbathers in parks was counter-productive provoked cries of “How many people do you want to die!?”

But there is also a danger that we’ll come to see the world only through the prism of risk, whether quantifiable or existential. If no level of risk is acceptable, why not surrender our everyday freedoms forever? When will we ever reach the point of it being safe to take off the masks and sit next to a stranger? When they first announced a lockdown in March 2020, the UK government turned on the tap of fear, but I don’t think they realised how hard it would be to turn off.

Until Covid came along, that falling appetite for taking risks was a soft cultural slide. Parents worried about letting their children play outside unsupervised (as they probably did at the same age) and then worried about their child’s mental health when their social lives moved online. Intimacy was something that the young, especially, liked to postpone, preferring more casual relationships, and mediation though technology. Why risk the awkwardness of telephone conversations, when you can text instead? Culture, from comedy to Young Adult literature, was trying to be less edgy and more inclusive, by avoiding material that might make somebody uncomfortable.

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Sage scientist: Don't rule out more delays

By Freddie Sayers

Covid is a real danger. It has killed millions worldwide, and it is far from over. It is reasonable to be afraid, and reasonable to take measures against it. But it’s not reasonable to expect a government to save every single person from it. It’s not reasonable to sacrifice every other social value to save every possible life.

Unfortunately, the Government’s authoritarian response to this deadly disease has been welcomed by a population that values protection above all. And having once offered itself as the strong, paternalistic shield against Covid, the Government will find it hard to back away.

Is there any hope for a citizenry so fearful, so averse to taking risks, so willing to give up liberty in return for safety?

There is one counter-example in recent history. A narrow majority of us willingly chose the riskier path in voting to take Britain into an unknown future, against expert advice and government warnings of financial loss and social chaos. Back in 2016, there was an appetite for taking a risk in the name of higher values — democracy, sovereignty, a sense of agency in an unpredictable world.

A country that voted for Brexit surely can’t be completely ready to give up all control over everyday life for ever.

The Professor of Health Psychology has been an outspoken advocate of strict lockdown measures, both serving on Sage’s Scientific Pandemic Insights group on Behaviour (SPI-B) and advising the World Health Organisation on Covid-19.

She spoke to UnHerd about whether lockdown will ever be lifted, why people are no longer obeying the restrictions, and she addresses criticism of her Communist politics.

Will we need facemasks forever?

“I actually used four words [in that interview with Channel 5], and only one of them was reported. The full words I used were “forever to some extent”. What I mean by this is that, sadly, this isn’t going to be the last pandemic. For as long as humans are around viruses are going to be around.

And so I think the issue is: what have we learned?

What I’m talking about is really population-wide cultural shifts in certain behaviours, and certain lifestyles.

I went on a work visit to Japan several years ago, and I was amazed at the fact that they were so frequently wearing masks… From their point of view, they just regard it as good manners… Now, I’m not saying that we should all adopt that. But I think it’s a good idea to keep these behaviours that we can turn on or off as needed.

I hope we don’t have to wear face masks. But I think that if we are in a situation, like we are at the moment — when we’re actually we’re on a bit of a knife edge — we could go either way. Hopefully the vaccination roll-out will be good and quick enough to not allow the Delta variant to get away. Or it won’t — and in this sort of situation where there’s a threat, I think for people to wear masks in enclosed indoor spaces, when we know it’s transmitted by aerosol, is really sensible.”

This might not be the last delay:

“I don’t think there’s really any alternative other than delaying for four weeks and seeing what’s happening. It’s a very tricky situation… I think [Boris] is right — I think the question is: is it going to be sufficient?

The Prime Minister very wisely said several weeks ago that we need to look at data, not dates. And I think he’s absolutely right. And I think he and the Government and everybody should really heed that advice. There are too many uncertainties in which way this kind of race between the vaccine and the variant may go. So I think four weeks, then review it and see where we are.”

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Lord Sumption: civil disobedience has begun

By Freddie Sayers

Britain’s poor pandemic response:

“I don’t think anybody would hold the UK up as a great example of pandemic response in this pandemic. I think it’s actually been one of the least good… It is very frustrating for everybody to know that, had we done things differently, we could have been in a very different place.”

People are no longer isolating:

“We have a situation still, after all this time, where tests take too long, where there aren’t traces on the ground, as there are in other, even relatively poorer countries. And people aren’t isolating. Our own research data shows that only about half people, even when they have symptoms of Covid, don’t isolate at home for a whole variety of reasons. But this is a failed system. And if we want to be serious about controlling the pandemic, we need to sort that out.”

On reports that she’s a member of the Communist Party of Britain:

“My politics are not anything to do with my scientific advice. And I’ve never discussed my politics with people like yourself, so nor am I going to now. And the important thing is that when one gives scientific advice, one does so using the expertise one has — not going beyond the expertise, being transparent about what expertise you provide. And I think that the kind of articles you refer to are a really disturbing kind of McCarthyite witch hunting, which I don’t think should have any place in a liberal tolerant society.”

How the pandemic will affect climate change:

“What I do hope is that this brings countries together more and there’s a more global way of looking at travel. Because actually, there’s an existential crisis around the corner, which is much greater than pandemics. And that’s the climate crisis. And air travel is one of the big contributors to global warming, and the kind of problems we’ve already been seeing.”

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We should have closed the borders:

“I think if we’d had better border controls, we wouldn’t have the Delta variant doing what it’s doing at the moment. We were far too late to really restrict travel.”

The travel traffic light system doesn’t work:

“One of the problems about [it] is that people often come through third countries. And so they might have come from a green, but gone through amber or red. And the other issue is: it’s not just about the country people have come from. If they’ve been in a large tourist resort, they’ll be mixing with people from lots of other countries.”

On whether Sage is political:

“We don’t even advise on policy. We are posed questions, and then we provide the scientific evidence and thinking in answer to those questions. It’s up to the policy makers and politicians what they decide.”

More should be done now:

“There’s a lot more we could be doing that would reduce transmission right now, and it’s not being done. And that’s frustrating.

Ensuring secondary schools have good ventilation… ensure that secondary schoolchildren wear masks within schools, and ensuring there are very small bubbles within schools.”

The ideology of Public Health:

“If you look at the publications coming out from the behavioural group of Sage, many of them talk about the problems of inequality in our society and… the fact that the pandemic itself and the response have increased those inequalities.

We never talk about each other’s politics; I assume there’s a very broad range. But everybody’s unanimous about wanting a more equal society. And in order to get a fairer and more just society, it does require [that] the government has… policies that reduce rather than increase inequalities.”

I think there is an ideological difference with Public Health science taking a more population-wide view of things… that is a different kind of emphasis to… the media you mentioned who would have much more emphasis on individual freedom, individual rights, rather than taking a more collective population approach.

This pandemic has shown everybody that no individual is an island — we’re very interconnected. No one community, no one socioeconomic group within society can think they can solve it for themselves and protect themselves.”