Virus mutation: Johnson will not be forgiven for the Christmas cancellation

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Boris Johnson was beside himself.

“I wish he had the guts to say what he really wants: He wants to cancel Christmas!

But we don't want to criminalize the people's long-forged plans that they made for the festive season, ”the British prime minister accused opposition leader Keir Starmer in the weekly House of Commons debate last Wednesday.

Now Johnson has canceled Christmas himself.

Many decisions in the Annus horribilis 2020 were probably difficult for the British Prime Minister.

But none of them tormented him as obviously as the U-turn on Saturday evening.

It was not until five days before the festival that Johnson was able to bring himself to cancel the holiday break, which is very generous compared to other European countries.

Three households with an unlimited number of people were allowed to meet for five days from December 23.

Christmas canceled: That's the headline this Sunday

Source: AFP

Millions of people in the kingdom had booked trains and flights, arranged meetings, organized overnight stays.

Families had been privately tested for Covid-19 for a lot of money and had already reduced contacts with others for days in order to travel to older family members as risk-free as possible.

Meanwhile, the transport minister cheered on Twitter that the government was funding additional intercity buses with 80,000 seats.

After the national lockdown that ended at the beginning of December, we were very happy to have a little bit of normalcy.

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“What was that - Pinocchio's Christmas?

This is truly a new definition of Johnson's procrastination and adjournment, ”raged the commentator for the Daily Telegraph, Johnson's long-time employer and mouthpiece of the Tory party.

Short term decision

Like them, many Englishmen will not forgive Johnson for the hastily arranged decision that he announced on Downing Street, flanked by his scientific advisors.

"With a heavy heart I have to tell you that we cannot go on with Christmas as planned," announced the head of government.

His advisor Patrick Vallance said that "in December 60 percent of new infections in London were due to the new variant".

Scientists had warned for weeks that the country would bitterly pay for the planned relaxed Christmas rules.

The sharp rise in infections in the US after Thanksgiving should be a warning to London.

What the chief medical advisor was only now ready to say his colleagues had been explaining for weeks.

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Most recently, the two journals "British Medical Journal" and "Health Service Journal" published a joint statement on December 15th that Johnson's plans are "a serious mistake and will cost many lives".

The warnings from representatives of the national health provider, the National Health Service, became increasingly shrill that the already overburdened clinics were on the verge of collapse due to a state-mandated expansion of social contacts.

At his short-term press conference on Saturday, Johnson placed great emphasis on the fact that his reversal was due to the spread of the gene mutation.

Downing Street is clearly trying to deliver the narrative that the infection situation has only worsened in the past few days.

Several scientists contradicted this on Sunday.

"The British government already made us aware of this mutation in September," said WHO expert Maria van Kerkhove of the BBC.

In London and other areas in south-east England, there has been a hard shutdown with curfews since Sunday night

Source: dpa / Stefan Rousseau

Susan Hopkins of Public Health England (PHE) confirmed that the government was informed in October of the mutation identified in samples taken back in September.

Last Friday, PHE alerted the prime minister that the mutation was extremely infectious and was now responsible for 70 percent of new infections in London and the English south-east.

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Critics accuse the prime minister that he should have seen the alarm signals much earlier.

Especially since in the county of Kent, bordering the capital, the number of infections continued to rise, although the government immediately returned the mainly rural area to "Tier 3", the highest level of restriction, after the national lockdown was lifted on December 2nd.

This is attributed to the fact that the mutation was able to spread there for months.

In late summer, the infection situation in the English southeast was more tense than in the rest of England.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted on Sunday morning that the virus mutation posed additional challenges for the government and agencies.

“The fundamental problem is that we need more measures now than with the old virus.

We know this because we saw in November that in Kent, where the variant first broke out, cases were not falling despite the lockdown - unlike in the rest of the country. "Hancock agreed with the nation that" the measures now put in place may remain in place for a few months. ”Until the vaccinations that were started two weeks ago are sufficiently widespread.

Lockdown extended regionally

In contrast to England, for which Johnson has competencies in the health sector, those responsible in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had already introduced tougher restrictions earlier.

Wales had only come out of an extended regional lockdown a few weeks ago, but this failed to bring the numbers down significantly.

Scotland had also closed schools, while those in England remained open.

The multi-day “holiday break” is now reduced to Christmas Day.

Exactly a year ago to the day, the newly elected Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood on Downing Street and wished the British a merry Christmas with glitter in their eyes.

Twelve months later, this wish has become a curse for him.