Ministers must stop deflecting responsibility. With infections once again increasing, it is their job to manage the risks
Across the UK, the sun is blazing, with temperatures in the low and mid-20s, including in north-west Scotland. Is the government’s pandemic response now also “running quite hot”, in the memorable phrase attributed to Michael Gove last year? The expression meant that Mr Gove was, relatively speaking, averse to Covid restrictions – that he was among those, in government and outside, who were prepared to countenance a higher level of risk from new cases in return for a reduction in the economic and social risks associated with lockdowns.
In the intervening year, the opposition between economic and health impacts that was used to frame the politics of the pandemic, in its initial stages, has been debunked. Since exponentially rising cases lead, inexorably, to the most severe measures, it was delusional as well as dangerous to imagine that the virus could be allowed to circulate. What difference does the successful rollout of the vaccination programme make? This is the question now confronting policymakers, and everyone else with decisions to make about how to live in the current circumstances.
