Covid: Why England's four-week coronavirus lockdown delay to July 19 points to another staycation summer
The logical implication of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's statement today about why the full end of the coronavirus lockdown in England is being delayed by at least four weeks is that no major holiday or business destinations abroad will go on the green list any time soon.
Dreams of foreign travel? Forget them.
How so? Well there are three reasons.
1) The PM, Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance all said that it won’t be prudent to allow us to mix with lots of others indoors until at least two-thirds of adults are double-dose vaccinated. And there are very few other big countries close to that level of vaccination. So on the PM’s logic, those other countries are potential sources of new infections.
2) He said that the only serious risk to yet another delay to ending all Covid-19 lockdown restrictions on July 19 is the arrival here of an even more infectious and more lethal new variant. So is he really going to increase the risk of that omega variant (or whatever Greek moniker it’s given) travelling here with returning holiday makers? The political risk to him is too great.
3) And that political risk to him of encouraging foreign travel too early is all the greater because of the credible charge against him that the delta variant (formerly known as the Indian variant) is rife because he acted too late to put India on the red list.
So it is another staycation summer, for better or worse
Listen to our politics podcast, Calling Peston