LONDON – “And you call this freedom?”. In the UK, following the initial disasters of the Johnson government, the fight against Covid is going so well that tabloids like the Daily Mail they are impatient, intolerant, hasty: “We have very few deaths, more than 50% of the adult population already vaccinated and they offer us endless restrictions: two tampons a week, vaccination passports and the government experts ask for masks for at least another year! prime minister bullies us. “
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The tabloids forget that the UK has had nearly 127,000 coronavirus deaths, the same Boris Johnson risked dying and therefore, to get to the coveted post-Covid normality set for June 21, the prime minister does not want to repeat the old mistakes. So, yesterday at a press conference, he asked the citizens for more “patience and caution. Because this must be an irreversible march towards freedom”. Translated: the last lockdown.
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Therefore, Johnson yesterday announced the entry into Phase 2 on the road to normalcy: from Monday 12 April in England pubs, bars and restaurants will reopen, but only for the external service after three months of lockdown and total closure, as well as hairdressers, gyms and non-essential shops. The public will also return to the football stadiums: 8 thousand spectators admitted to the League Cup final on April 25 between City and Tottenham, 20 thousand for the Fa Cup on May 15. On the other hand, holidays abroad are still illegal, at least until May 17.
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Not only. The British leader has announced two more controversial measures. The first is immediate: two free antigen tests per week to all overseas residents, to keep the number of deaths and infections as low as possible. Yesterday the UK recorded 26 deaths from Covid, on 10 weekends a day (low since September), a 90% decline in one month. New infections also collapsed: yesterday 2,762 out of nearly 1.3 million tests. This is thanks to the long lockdown and the simultaneous and massive vaccination campaign: already 31.5 million people inoculated with at least one dose and 5.4 with two.
But it is the second measure that unleashes the tabloids and traditionalists. That is the vaccine passports, which for Johnson are essential not only for international travel but also in the United Kingdom to return to normal as soon as possible: they will be used to go to work, concerts, theater and stadiums and perhaps even in pubs and restaurants. The measure is under study, has long technical times and will be ready by June. Certainly, the “vaccination certificate” will provide three possibilities: proof of having received an anti-coronavirus vaccine, or the negative result of a Covid test in the previous 24 hours, or, alternatively, the result of a serological test certifying the presence of antibodies after recovering from Covid.
Open up heaven. Johnson came under fire from dozens of his conservative colleagues but also from radical socialists like Jeremy Corbyn: all, so far about seventy, consider vaccination passports an “anti-ethical, discriminatory and liberticidal measure” and a “dangerous precedent” against the untouchable privacy of the British, in a country that does not even have identity cards. Parliament will have the last word. But the polls seem to be with Boris: according to the latest Ipsos Mori, 78% of Britons are in favor of using vaccine passports to travel abroad, 68% to go to the theater or concerts, 63% for the gym and 62% for pubs and restaurants. Big brother or not.
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