The debate over Christmas Covid restrictions shows how the PM’s procrastination has left Britain with only bad options
Christmas can be a testing time for unhappy relationships and Boris Johnson’s romance with science is already on the rocks. If the prime minister was a faithful lover of evidence he would not relax pandemic regulations for the festive season. If he only had eyes for the rate of coronavirus infections he would not have issued a special five-day licence for household mingling; not while the lines on the graphs are all pointing in the wrong direction.
The US experience since Thanksgiving shows how shuffling the population for a national holiday – moving people across regions and mixing up the generations – causes a surge in Covid cases. Ministers, under mounting political pressure, were hinting about revisions to the plan on Tuesday. Nervous government hands are reaching for the tightening screws.
