Johnson said “we simply don’t yet know enough” about Omicron – yet his press conference did nothing but instil fear
I certainly fear that new restrictions are just around the corner.
Cartoon by Crid.
The reporting of just two cases of the Omicron Covid variant in Britain was surely not enough to warrant a press conference from the Prime Minister and his two main scientific advisers – never mind the (re)introduction of restrictions on Britons. Yet that is the situation we now find ourselves in.
Johnson told the nation that “we simply don’t yet know enough” about the Covid variant, but insisted the Government has no choice but to take a “precautionary approach” against it.
This will include mask mandates in indoor public spaces (a point on which he was very vague) and the testing and forced isolation (until a negative result comes back – regardless of whether one does or does not display Covid symptoms) of everyone who enters the country.
But, I believe, the press conference did more than spread the word of new measures – it furthered the spread of fear.
The interruption itself, at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon, was surely enough to make many people believe that the country was about to suffer a terrible bout of the virus.
Johnson told us that Omicron “spreads very rapidly and can be spread between people who are double vaccinated”. He added that we are not yet sure how effective our vaccines will be against the variant. (They will add “at least some” protection, he said – surely, from what we have heard so far, a massive understatement.) Later, Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, said there is “potential for some degree of escape from vaccine” with the variant. Johnson insisted that new measures must be introduced in order to give scientists time to know what it is we are dealing with.
But what we have heard from those very scientists – including those close to the Government – has so far been very positive.
As I wrote in the Express earlier today, Sage’s Professor Calum Semple has said on Omicron: “This is not a disaster, and the headlines from some of my colleagues saying 'this is horrendous' I think are hugely overstating the situation.”
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, the Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, added: “It is extremely unlikely that a reboot of a pandemic in a vaccinated population like we saw last year is going to happen.”
Even England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has urged the Government to be cautious when it comes to “more muscular restrictions”.
And, in case this wasn’t enough, Pfizer and Moderna, two of the world’s biggest Covid vaccine producers, have said they will be able to “very quickly” update their vaccines “if they need to” because of Omicron.
Please tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure none of this was mentioned in the conference.
Instead we heard, again, that we must get vaccinated – or “boosted”, if we’ve already been vaccinated twice. (Toby Young has a great line on this in his review of the press conference for the Daily Sceptic: “Rather confusingly, Chris Whitty said there was a “reasonable chance” the new variant can partially escape the Covid vaccines and, in the next breath, said it was therefore very important for people to get the booster jab. Eh?”)
Full reports on an “improvement” in Covid case numbers and decreasing hospitalisation rates were left to Whitty, after Johnson’s speech had ended (by which time, I’m sure, most people had turned their screens off – I must say, I was tempted).
From what we do know so far, this press conference was unnecessary. The ramping up of restrictions, including those relating to masks, is reactionary. But regardless of this, Britons will now be that little bit more scared – whether that be about the ruining of (another) Christmas or a fear of Covid itself, or, of course, both.
Ooh, and by the way – we are told that the measures will be reviewed in three weeks (when the number of Omicron case in Britain will, inevitably, have risen). Do you reckon this review will see restrictions being taken away, or new restrictions being added to the pile?
I’ll share some more interested responses as they come in below.
