After a cheerless Christmas break, Britain is facing a bleak midwinter. On December 28, millions of people throughout the nation will return to some form of lockdown. It is all four governments’ panic tainted response to a vast increase in cases, the highest for months.
The recent patchwork of restrictions has not worked and despite the successful launch of the vaccination programme there seems no alternative.
Apart from the Christmas shopping normal life has been stopped in its tracks,
Matt Hancock has added more areas of England to the highest risk level, despite protests from areas where the infection rate has fallen. Only the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, the Scilly Isles and Herefordshire are in the lowest tier.
My hopes of a visit from Robert this weekend were dashed when Buckinghamshire was added to tier three. He has already booked to come on December 27, delighted to hear that Sunrise has completed the work on a new screened visiting room and revised its rules, allowing children to visit for the first time.
It is an exciting prospect, to see my grandson and my great grandchildren but I would not bank on it happening as cross border travel might yet be stopped.
I am joining the many sceptics, including most of the health experts and advisers, who think Christmas should have been called off, or deferred, perhaps until Easter - others faiths have forgone their festivals.
Discussions this week between the government leaders on a united approach again got nowhere and the prime minister has insisted on the Christmas break while advising everyone not to travel and to have even smaller family gatherings despite his own rules.
Another recipe for muddle.
It is cruel to have raised expectations of a happy Christmas only to dash people’s hopes.
Now we face a few days respite which will almost certainly cost lives.
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