Boris, Please Don’t Reduce Us To Tiers Again
So you know how this is a cautious irreversible reopening? Um. We may have a problem…
The PM had to make a call at the end of last week as to whether he wanted to slam the breaks on the reopening that happened on Monday, allowing restaurants to open indoors, socialising inside and so on. Scientists were split and ultimately it was going to cause havoc to change tack at such a late moment, so here we are hugging indoors talking about tiers again.
The problem the PM is now grappling with is whether to go ahead with the June 21st grand reopening, the much fabled moment when we can dispense with restrictions altogether and collectively burn our masks.
The answer, according to Boris, is “we’ll know in a few days”…
And the answer, according to Boris, is “we’ll know in a few days”, which isn’t exactly the most reassuring vote of confidence.
The reason for the sudden panic is that the new Indian Variant has taken hold in a few areas, Bolton and Blackburn and Bedford and has been detected in 86 different council areas. This new variant appears to be up to 50% more transmissible, which means it’s likely to become the the dominant UK variant in time. But also means that it could still pose a serious problem to plans to reopen on time.
The PM’s spokesman yesterday said “As the Prime Minister first said on Friday, the variant first identified in India could pose serious disruption to this progress and could make it more difficult to move to step four on the earliest date of June 21st”
And so enters our old friend, the tier system…
The last 48 hours have seen increased chatter about the reintroduction of localised tiers to stem the spread of covid. Asked by journalists, Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule a return to tiers.
And so enters our old friend, the tier system…
Speaking to Sky News about reintroducing tiers he said “Yes, well, we don’t rule that out.
“The approach that we’re taking in Bolton and in Blackburn is to absolutely pile in testing and vaccinations to try to get on top of this.
“When we had an outbreak of the South African variant in South London last month we put in huge amounts, hundred of thousands of tests in surge testing.
The plan being hatched by ministers looks like the introduction of localised tiers to ensure that outbreaks of the Indian Variant don’t spread.
Much like the WWI strategy of constantly repeating slow-walking across battlefields as Germans machine-gunned entire regiments in seconds, we know that tiers simply aren’t effective. They are exactly how we didn’t avoid the killer third wave, or the November lockdown or, indeed any wave of covid.
We know that tiers simply aren’t effective…
While not stopping the spread of the virus, it’s also likely to inflict yet more economic pain on the hospitality industry, exacerbate all the medical and mental issues related to lockdowns and prolong the national agony of dealing with coronavirus.
The solution, surely, is in ramping up our already impressive vaccination programme. The US is jabbing teenagers over the age of 12, let’s do that too. Clearly there have been issues at a local level reaching some older victims in Blackburn and Bolton, government needs to work with community leaders to fix this too. But, ultimately, tiers are not going to save us, having a fully-vaccinated population will.
Please don’t reduce us to tiers again…
