Roadmap Out of Lockdown: A Cause for Optimism At Last?

“Data, not dates,” said Boris Johnson, would be the key to England’s route out of the current lockdown. Predictably, the roadmap he then announced was a series of dates (to be honest, how could it be anything else?), with the 21^st June the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the date at which everything should be back to normal. Or at least that is what most people seem to be assuming, especially on social media; it isn’t what the roadmap says.

In Step 1, schools re-open on 8^th March, regulations on meeting people outdoors are relaxed slightly, and care home residents can have one regular visitor.[1] From 29^th March, households can mix outdoors but not indoors, and some organised sport is allowed.

Step 2 includes opening gyms and libraries, non-essential retail and hairdressers, and allows household groups domestic overnight stays and self-catering holidays; Step 3 sees re-opening indoor entertainment, and indoor and outdoor events with spectators. In Step 4, life returns to pretty much how we remember it, pre-March 2020.

But, and here’s the major caveat, all the dates in the roadmap are subject to four tests being passed:

• The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully
• Evidence shows that vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated
• Infection rates do not show a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS
• The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by any new “variants of concern” of the virus

It seems that the tests being passed is largely being taken for granted but, while ‘no earlier than’ means definitively that Step 4 cannot be reached before 21^st June, it does not mean that cannot be later than then. The four conditions need to be met every step of the way, so Step 4 could be in June, or July, or August, or later, assuming the Government sticks to its own rules. You may remember Lockdown 1, when relaxing social distancing measures was contingent on the R number falling, but restrictions were eased on the basis of a timetable rather than data. That could happen again.

This diagram showed the supposed route out of Lockdown #1; it was largely ignored.

If the Government does follow its own rules this time, and if we, the public, play our part, and if the vaccination programme continues at the pace and efficiency with which it has started, then for the first time in several months there may be cause for optimism.  Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel, but the end of that tunnel must be reached by reference to data, not blind adherence to dates.

Naturally, the light isn’t close enough for some, as this Daily Mail front page shows.

What are we waiting for? Another surge in infections and another lockdown, perhaps?

Of course, it’s easy to be gung-ho and demanding about these things when you don’t have to take any responsibility if it all goes horribly wrong. Meanwhile, petitions have been started to make 21^st June a Bank Holiday, not a wise move in my opinion, but unsurprising, as unsurprising as an uptick in infections a fortnight later if the last year is any guide.

Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford, has said that the Prime Minister should "show flexibility and a willingness to move faster if the data allows it.” Others have said similar, but by the same token, they must be prepared for the Government to adapt to the data and move more slowly if necessary. Will they be patient if the data suggests that the dates cannot be met? I suspect not; the idea that these dates are set in stone seems to have taken root.

The wisdom of a mass return to schools on 8^th March is debatable. At the start of the year Boris Johnson, in support of pupils returning to their classrooms, claimed that schools were perfectly safe. Twenty-four hours later, after schools had re-opened for one day, he declared that they were ‘vectors of transmission,’ and closed them again. The science did not change in those twenty-four hours and I’m not aware of it changing significantly since, so why are schools now safe to re-open?  Vaccines, I suppose, and Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi explained how vaccines made the case for an 8th March re-opening on breakfast TV on Monday, but ended up making an almost unimpeachable case for keeping schools closed till May.

As with all of the steps in the roadmap, time will tell, and wisely (not a word I am accustomed to use in relation to him), Boris Johnson has not ruled out further lockdowns – local or national – especially in order to tackle new variants of coronavirus. All things considered, this roadmap does appear more measured, more considered, and more realistic than some previous timetables and plans, so much so that I do wonder if someone curbed Johnson’s impulsive nature when it was being drawn up, or if he was sidelined entirely.

Looking at the roadmap from a personal perspective, the fact that sporting events with spectators cannot restart before 17^th May has led the Isthmian League to curtail the season, putting the kibosh on Romford FC playing any more league games, so it looks like it will be August before I see any more football.

Holiday lettings in self-contained accommodation can re-open from 12^th April, so, like many other people I’ll be hoping we can get away somewhere shortly after that date: All roads to the English coast will be jam-packed in April’s second week. International travel won’t return until 17^th May at the earliest, and although I suspect that Val would like to get away somewhere hot, I’ll happily wait till next year before dusting off my passport.

The thing that I have missed above all others in the last twelve months has been going to gigs. All being well, 17^th May will see indoor events such as gigs allowed with an audience of 1,000 or 50% of the venue’s capacity, and on 23^rd May I am due to see Sparks at The Roundhouse in Camden, and then Yes at The Royal Albert Hall the next day. I don’t suppose that either of these events are guaranteed to take place, and if they do, how the organisers will cater for reduced capacities. I expect to see emails at some point with information on that score.

Yes at The London Palladium, March 2018

I haven’t seen the inside of a pub since March 2020 (that’s the longest hiatus since I was a teenager), and even when they re-open in April it will be with outdoor service only, so the chances of me visiting one then are slim. Indoor drinking is scheduled to resume in June, which will be the earliest I’ll visit one I expect, since a visit to a pub is, for me, incomplete without actually being inside. If al fresco drinking is all that is on offer, I might as well stay in my own garden.

Any optimism I have about the coming months is tempered by caution. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip, and even the most competent administration is a hostage to fortune in the face of a pandemic like this, but maybe, just maybe, they have it right this time.

The first landmark on Johnson’s roadmap is less than two weeks hence, when schools and colleges re-open. I just noticed, there’s no mention in the roadmap of when all MPs will return to the House of Commons, but I imagine it’s the same day as schools, don’t you?

 

 

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[1] Full details of the roadmap are on the Gov.uk website, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-roadmap-to-cautiously-ease-lockdown-restrictions