The moment had to come – Boris Johnson took back control at tonight’s press briefing. Take all the media speculation about when and how the government is going to take us out of lockdown, said the Prime Minister, “with a pinch of salt.”
Oh dear. Friday night drops and midnight briefings from ministers – probably directly from No 10 itself – are not to be believed anymore. Did anybody believe them anyway? Perish the thought.
But now we have the words from the horse’s mouth – the PM will provide his own compass for his roadmap out of lockdown on Monday week. Anything you hear or read until then must be taken with lashings of salt but it does sound like it’s going to be a long road out.
Nor would the PM promise that we would ever go into another lockdown again, or that vaccinations would prove 100 per cent effective. And how could he have done so? There are times when you wonder which planet some of these TV journalists are living on.
Yet the runes for the way out are looking better than at any time since October, even if it does mean clubbers will need lateral flow tests to get into nightclubs. Expect fury from many young Britons, when liberties are eroded to such an extent that a state-mandated test is required for a night out.
Britain today recorded 9,765 coronavirus cases in the smallest daily rise since 2 October, and another 230 people have died after having tested positive with Covid-19. Both daily tolls were down by 30 per cent on last Monday while the number of infected inpatients is now half its January peak in England – 17,694 down from 34,336.
More than 90 per cent of those aged over 70 have now been vaccinated but, as the PM also pointed out to demonstrate why he remains so cautious, 60 per cent of hospital patients with Covid are under 70.
So with a little salt, it rather looks as though schools will open up fully on 8 March but the date we will be allowed to have family Easter egg hunts in the garden or tea parties with friends at home may still be some way off.
At least the PM, for once, did not over-promise on what to expect from next week’s timetable despite clamouring from his most outspoken backbenchers – aka Steve Baker – that the road to freedom must now be clearly set out.
However, what the PM must promise to ensure is that once we are out of lockdown the government must repeal all the emergency Covid restrictions forthwith. Immediately. If any new restrictions are needed in the future – should there be another outbreak in the autumn for example – the PM would have to come back to the Commons with new proposals. It’s called taking back control.
Tongue-twister
Hats off to Boris Johnson for allowing himself to look foolish while pronouncing the name of one of the latest Covid wonder drugs: the tongue-twisting Tocilizumab, an arthritis drug that has been shown to reduce the severity of the disease.
The PM would have had an easier time talking about how effective vitamin D is in treating patients with Covid following the striking results of a recent Spanish study.
Debate over whether vitamin D reduces the risk of Covid-19 has raged for months, with advocates such as David Davis MP recommending the NHS should advise us all to take at least the minimum dose of the vitamin.
This latest study builds upon a smaller pilot trial in Cordoba in which calcifediol treatment reduced ICU admission by 50 per cent in hospitalised Covid patients. Several other observational studies have drawn links between vitamin D deficiency and poor Covid outcomes.
But Matt Hancock has been cautious about the virtues of this age-old sunshine substance as a coronavirus treatment specifically, instead calling for vitamin D research to be “kept under review”.
Well, this new study could be a turning point. While still awaiting peer review, some scientists have called for researchers to clear up some ambiguities about the control group and patient selection.
Even so, it rather looks as though vitamin D is a treatment that carries negligible risk but potentially, a massive gain. And much cheaper and easier to prescribe.
The City fights back
City grandees are in fightback mode. They are so fed up with headlines screeching about how the EU is stealing the City’s European share trading business and refusing to grant UK firms equivalence, that they have formed a new lobbying group to take the fight back to the EU – and indeed, to the UK.
The group – the CityUnited Project – is headed by Professor Daniel Hodson, former boss of Liffe. Hodson – a prominent Brexiteer – says priority number one is to debunk the myth that an EU agreement on so-called “equivalence” is vital. Quite the reverse. Hodson, who is joined by Lord Hannan, Lord Lamont, Danny Corrigan and lawyers Barney Reynolds and Martin Howe, claims that equivalence undermines any changes the City’s authorities might want to introduce. Plus, equivalence is so political that it can be renounced without notice, as was seen with the way the EU triggered Article 16 over vaccines.
More pertinently, CityUnited is unsparing in its criticism of the City establishment – specifically the City Corporation – the big institutions and their “creature” spokesperson, The CityUK – which they claim are too pro-EU. Touché.
Maggie Pagano,
Executive Editor
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