After Boris Johnson announced new measures to protect against the Omikron variant, there was a dispute on Thursday about its logic.

One newspaper summarized them in the headline: "Don't go to work, but go to parties".

But the real explosives were elsewhere.

For the first time, the Prime Minister had made it clear that compulsory vaccination is not always taboo in the Kingdom.

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

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Similar to the German government, the British had always ruled out compulsory vaccination. It was said to run counter to British values. Johnson liked to use the phrase that a duty is “not the way we do things here”. But when he was asked about it on Wednesday, a tone could be heard that was previously more familiar from Germany or Austria: “I don't think that we can continue with non-pharmaceutical interventions permanently, with restrictions on our way of life, just because unfortunately there is "I didn't want our society to have a culture of forcing people to vaccinate," said Johnson.Should the vaccines prove to be effective against Omikron, one needs "a national discussion on the way forward".

For nurses and doctors only?

Some interpreted this as a hidden indication of a change of course.

When Health Minister Sajid Javid was asked about this on Thursday on the BBC, he calibrated his answer.

He said he was “not interested” in statutory vaccination regulations.

He hadn't ruled out anything.

But Javid also said: "My view is that this is unethical and would also not work on a practical level." There should only be compulsory vaccination for nurses and doctors.

Great Britain is still under less pressure than those countries in which vaccination is to come.

The number of new infections has remained surprisingly stable in the past few weeks, albeit at a high level.

But the Omikron variant gives the experts a gloomy view of the winter.

Without measures, the number of hospital admissions would rise to 1,000 a day in January, warned model calculators at the beginning of the week.

It is uncertain whether the now (gradually) tightened requirements - expansion of the mask requirement, return to home work "where possible" and the introduction of vaccination or test certificates for night clubs and major events - will noticeably slow down development.

In the government district it is whispered that a new lockdown will be necessary after New Year's at the latest.

Broken credibility

With 21 million booster vaccinations, Great Britain is an international leader. 81 percent of Britons over twelve years of age are double vaccinated, almost 90 percent are single. However, the success is no longer considered sufficient to ward off the Omikron threat. The virus variant is not only easy for the unvaccinated and simply vaccinated. Initial studies suggest that people who have been vaccinated twice become infected easily. Hope rests on the boosters and new, modified vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which have already been purchased in large numbers but not yet approved.

The government's credibility is cracked. In the spring, Johnson had promised to "carefully but irreversibly" lead the country out of lockdown. Now it is time to turn back. There is also a debate about double standards. There is evidence that a Christmas party was held at Johnson's official residence last December while the rest of the country was locked down. Johnson now wants to investigate internally what happened under his roof. This is greeted with scorn in large parts of the country. "It's hard to imagine that Johnson didn't even stop by at gatherings of more than 15 people at his house," says a journalist who is well connected in Downing Street and who was invited to the official apartment herself last late fall.

Although there are indications of at least two other festivities in the government district, Scotland Yard has for the moment refrained from investigating;

there was a lack of evidence, it was said.

The government has since announced that it will expand its investigation to all suspected cases and that it will call in the police if violations are found.

A schedule was not disclosed, which should give Johnson the respite that he also needs because he became a father for the (officially) seventh time on Thursday.