The country’s second lockdown is ending prematurely because politics rather than science is driving Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 policy
The UK government’s first attempt to control the Covid-19 pandemic in England through a regional tiered system was a failure. The rules were not tough or clear enough, and there were arguments about the way in which local areas were categorised by Whitehall. The tier system was in force for less than three weeks before a steep rise in Covid infections forced the government to replace it with the second national lockdown, which remains in force.
So the fundamental question to ask about the new English tier system that will operate from 2 December is whether it will be any more effective than the first one was. The answer is far from certain, not least because the new tiers, the details of which were published on Thursday, are not being introduced because the pandemic is now under greater control. Instead they are being brought in for essentially political reasons.
