Man received his second dose of Pfizer vaccine at a vaccine center in north London.
Britons these days are encouraged—though not required in most cases—to wear face coverings in crowded indoor spaces. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson regularly appears alongside other masked Conservative lawmakers in the packed, poorly ventilated House of Commons cheek.
To critics, that image encompasses the blame in the government’s strategy, which has abandoned most pandemic restrictions and is banking on voluntary restraints and a high vaccination rate to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
As winter approaches, with the threat of a new COVID surge approaching, Britain’s light touch is separating it from more cautious countries.
“The story of this government in the pandemic is too little, too late,” said Laila Moran, an opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker who heads the all-party parliamentary group on the coronavirus.
She said some UK hospitals are already seeing numbers of virus patients in intensive care units higher than what they would normally expect in the depths of winter, although overall daily hospital admissions are about a fifth of January’s peak. running in.
And while cases spiked this summer when restrictions were lifted, deaths were nowhere near the same pace. But the winter months, when respiratory illnesses are usually at their highest, can bring an added challenge.
“Unless the government starts doing something different, I don’t think we will be able to avert the worst this winter,” Moran said.
The government argues that its plan is working so far—and it may change course if necessary.
Britain has recorded more than 135,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe after Russia and the same per capita number as the United States. Yet it has also conducted a successful vaccination campaign in which 65% of the entire population has been fully vaccinated.
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