At midnight, the time has come: Hundreds of people are shouting a countdown.

Then the music gets loud, a singer screams "Freedom".

Headlights flash, balloons fall from the ceiling onto the dancing crowd - all without a mask, of course.

In the London nightclub "Heaven", according to a travel guide the "most famous LGBT + nightclub in the world", the end of all corona restrictions was celebrated in the night from Sunday to Monday.

Almost two million people have now clicked on the video clip.

Philip Plickert

Business correspondent based in London.

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But many see the end of all legal corona regulations with great concern, because the number of infections in Great Britain is steeply upwards.

Regardless of this, all remaining legal corona restrictions in the part of England have been lifted since Monday.

Proponents call it “Freedom Day”.

The legal requirement to wear a mask is over, the distance rules in restaurants or cinemas and the upper limits for events, concerts, weddings and private celebrations have fallen.

Sections of the economy are delighted with the end of the restrictions.

The catering industry in particular breathes a sigh of relief because - after sixteen lossy months and thousands of bankruptcies - it is finally hoping to do better business again.

Chaos in Johnson's corona management

Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the decision to end the restrictions again. But at the same time he warned the public: “Please, please be careful.” He himself was forced to make an embarrassing U-turn on Sunday: First of all, he wanted to avoid quarantine after he had contact with Health Minister Sajid Javid, who tested positive for Corona. But just a few hours later, the prime minister announced that he and Finance Minister Rishi Sunak would go into "self-isolation" after all. For Labor Chairman Keir Starmer, the abrupt U-turn was just further evidence of the "chaos" in Johnson's corona management.

The number of those who tested positive for the coronavirus has risen sharply again since June and is currently reaching more than 50,000 in Great Britain on some days - almost as much as at the previous high in January with 60,000 new infections.

Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson expects the number to almost certainly climb to 100,000.

"I think it is almost certain that we will get up to 1,000 hospital admissions a day," says Ferguson.

But it is even possible to double that.

Then the state health system NHS could again reach its limits.

Delta variant is rampant among the younger generation

The proponents of the “Freedom Day” decision point to the success of the vaccination campaign, which has built a “protective wall” against severe disease. In fact, the number of people seriously ill and those who died with Covid has so far been much lower than in previous waves. 68 percent of adults are now double vaccinated, 88 percent single. But especially among the younger ones, many are not protected. The delta variant of the virus is now rampant there faster.

Many stores continue to require customers to wear masks.

Starbucks, for example, asks "politely" for it, the sports store Sports Direct makes it "mandatory".

In front of supermarkets like Sainsbury's there are large boards: wearing the mask is now a “personal choice” - but out of consideration for other customers and the staff, it is recommended.

In shopping centers like Bentalls in the London suburb of Kingston, around three quarters of customers still wear mouth and nose protection, and a quarter without.

Mayor Sadiq Khan has issued a general mask requirement for the London Underground and Bus Company.

Self-isolation becomes a problem

An increasing problem for many companies is that employees have to go into "self-isolation" because the NHS Corona warning program orders this after contact with those who have tested positive. Last week, more than 530,000 people in England and Wales had to withdraw into their own four walls - just under one percent of the population. Some companies are now running out of staff.

The UK Hospitality Association warns that some restaurants are only running a savings operation because up to a fifth of the employees are missing. The fashion and grocery chain Marks & Spencer will shorten the opening hours of some stores. At the Nissan plant in Sunderland, 900 employees had to "self-isolate", more than a tenth of the workforce. On the stock market, the FTSE100 index lost a good 2 percent due to growing concerns about new corona pollution. The biggest losers were aviation groups like IAG, the British Airways parent company, with minus 5 percent.

There are increasingly loud calls from business associations to relax the regulations for “self-isolation” after contact with those who have tested positive. The UK Hospitality Association also wants it. But after Johnson's and Sunak's turnaround on Sunday, this should now be difficult.