For Britain and Boris Johnson, 2021 begins with a new Covid challenge

Johnson faces a difficult – and politically precarious – balancing act as he and his advisers try to weigh the risks to public health and economic pain, while keeping voter support tired of the pandemic. The prime minister has faced criticism from both those who say he is doing too little too late and those who complain that he has gone too far with restrictions and severely damaged the economy.

In trying to chart a middle ground, Johnson spent weeks publicly pushing back calls for stricter blocking measures advocated by scientific advisers, before finally deciding to adopt them as a new, more contagious variant of the virus that spread rapidly across the country. and hospitals. filled with the sick.

Throughout his tenure on Downing Street, Mr. Johnson has often waited until the last minute to make big-bet decisions and has used his political style to sell them. This approach paid off by uniting its Conservative party for Brexit and reaching a new trade agreement with the European Union.

But critics say it has served him poorly in treating the virus, leading to unnecessary delays, further disruption and public confusion. Britain, which has recorded more than 75,000 deaths from Covid, is on track to have the worst mortality rate in Europe. It has also suffered one of the largest contractions in economic production. The economy at the end of the third quarter was 8.6% lower than the previous year, a larger drop in production than France, Germany or Italy.

Over the past year, Mr. Johnson’s government has deviated from a relatively practical route to building the herd’s immunity to a series of interventions of varying rigor. There have also been other political changes, from the dismissal of masks to their approval, from subsidizing restaurant meals to banning food and increasing and reducing the number of people allowed at social gatherings.

Government officials say the pandemic strategy was refined as the understanding of the virus improved. Through it all, Mr. Johnson has repeatedly said the closures should be used sparingly and as a last resort, noting the human costs involved.

Johnson’s public approval of crisis management has declined as policy changes have increased. Currently, 36% of Britons approve of the government’s treatment of the pandemic, below 72% in the spring, according to the YouGov poll. However, it is clear that, in the short term, at least the British overwhelmingly support restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. A Savanta ComRes poll showed on Tuesday that 79% of Britons supported the blockade.

The coming months will be critical for the prime minister, said Robert Hayward, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and a pollster. The British government has been very committed to vaccines, approving them and aiming to deploy them faster than any other Western nation.

Johnson has pledged to vaccinate 13 million Britons most vulnerable to the virus by mid-February to pave the way for an end to pandemic restrictions. At the same time, the economic impact of the trade agreement it signed with the EU last month will begin to be felt in Britain.

“Judgments will be made at this stage,” Hayward said. “That’s when the fog will clear.”

It will be difficult for Mr. Johnson to avoid blaming any deficiency. Unlike the United States, under Britain’s centralized system of government, prime ministers are responsible for both the nationalized healthcare system and the implementation of blockade rules across England.

A small but vocal libertarian cluster of conservative lawmakers has pushed for the removal of restrictions. In part, in response to them, Johnson has tried to keep the economy as open as possible by avoiding the most draconian restrictions and making available to him £ 22 billion, the equivalent of $ 30 billion, to fund a test system. and tracking that you have it with poor performance.

Cushioning Mr Johnson’s blow is Brexit. During the 2019 elections it acquired a new blue-collar Brexit support base that has so far been faithful. “They’re basically willing to keep up with Johnson regardless of his handling of specific issues,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent. Whether they still are will depend on how Johnson manages to revive the country’s post-industrial areas after Covid and Brexit.

Currently, the Conservatives remain the same (or in some polls slightly ahead) of the opposition Labor party. And Mr. Johnson can be a persuasive politician.

“He’s a charming audience expert who could have been angry with him,” said Matthew Flinders, a professor at the University of Sheffield. “So no, I have a feeling he won’t have a blow too big.” And the next election is four years away.

However, the last few weeks have been particularly turbulent. The discovery of a new variant of the virus in the south of England, which scientists say is up to 70% more transmissible, combined with a loosening of government restrictions in some places over Christmas, led to a practical duplication of infection rates in late December. Data released on Tuesday showed that in early January one in 50 people in England had the virus.

Johnson introduced a three-tier system of restrictions in October in an effort to curb case burdens while limiting restrictions to the economy. As cases continued to rise, he ordered a four-week closure in England on 5 November.

According to an indicator that measures the rigor of public health measures developed by Oxford University, the November closure was slightly less restrictive than the blockade imposed in the spring, during the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. The indicator places the rigor of the November lock at 75 on a 100-point scale, compared to about 80 in March and April.

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The Google unit shows that the second blockade did not deter people from traveling to the same extent as the first, which may have accelerated the spread of the variant.

In London and Kent, for example, two places where the new variant has been consolidated, store trips were about 80% to 90% below their pre-pandemic norm in April, according to Google data. In November, the number of such trips was 60% to 70% lower.

Scientists at Imperial College London, in a study published online on December 31, said their research suggests that the blocking measures in place in November were enough to control older variants of the coronavirus, but not the version more contagious.

Despite the worrying trends that emerged during Christmas, warnings from scientific advisers and images of ambulances lining up outside hospitals, Johnson Sunday, appeared in a chat and advocated for primary school children to return. at school Monday.

On Monday, Johnson visited a hospital to celebrate that the UK was the first country to launch the new vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and Oxford University. He hinted that more restrictions would come. That night, the helpers were preparing their speech to the nation: there should be a new closure and the schools would close.

“The next few weeks will be the toughest yet, but I think we’re getting into the final phase of the fight,” Johnson said.