New lockdown in England, including school closures, announced by Johnson, 4/1/21

[yorksrob]

I wouldn't know. I've not taken a train since March, as there's not been a single second since then where there's both been the ability to travel on a train in comfort, and something worthwhile to travel to.

Beautiful Blighty is always worth travelling to (or parts therein), although I agree, face coverings are a bit of a nuisance.

 

[Luke McDonnell]

You've put it well and I have to agree with you. I genuinely believe we are living in the 'new normal' that Boris and co have been going on about for 10 months. I really think a national Tier 2 or 3 is as good as its going to get.

That is certainly what we don't want on a permanent basis. Remember that in tiers 2 and 3 it is actually illegal to meet with anyone you don't live with indoors except for limited exceptions - e.g. work/education purposes/support bubbles - I would certainly not like to live in a world where that is banned how would you meet your friends and family (except outside) without breaking the law?

I have been very good over the last few months considering I have Asperger's syndrome/ASD - I was very anxious when this all kicked off last March/April but I got used to it after that. But over the last few days I have been becoming more agitated again as we are not given even a target date for the ending of these restrictions by our leaders and especially when I have over the last few days read quite a few posts expressing opinions that this is never going to end and we are going to be under some form of restrictions permanently compared to the pre Covid status quo ante (2019) even if it is not as restrictive as now. I have understood the need for the restrictions but that is on the basis that they are temporary. The reasons some have given for this was the possibility that the vaccine may not be as effective as hoped e.g. quoting the early data from Israel), vaccine resistant mutations and/or immunity not lasting very long. Even reading about those topics have made me a bit more anxious as they seem to have been in the limelight recently. But as far as more long term restrictions are concerned I think it will depend on how severe the restrictions are for me to tolerate. If it was relatively mild restrictions like mask wearing during the winter months (Covid season), controls on very large gatherings (e.g. over 30 persons) and selective quarantine from high risk countries that might have a problematic mutation I could live with it to an extent. If, however we persist with the current very severe restrictions (by any standards including historical standards as pandemics go) such as meeting family/friends indoors, closed shops, closed hospitality and no quarantine free overseas travel - even if vaccinated I certainly would not see that being tolerable on a long term basis - even if it was just in the Winter 'covid season'. It is the prospect of these sort of restrictions being needed next winter and possibly beyond which makes me stressed. So as far as Chris Whitty hinting at restrictions next winter do you think he means the former modest restrictions? If the virus was in endemic lets say a) without a vaccine b) partially effective vaccine or c)highly effective vaccine do you think there is the possibility of restrictions of some sort persisting or as the virus is endemic there will be no exponential growth so it would not be much of a burden on the NHS etc? Also another reason why heavy restrictions next winter may not be acceptable IMO is because I fully expect to have been vaccinated with 2x jabs by then and once I am vaccinated (and my friends ad family are) and the immunity kicks in I will no longer feel any moral obligation to follow a restrictive lifestyle so IMO I think if any attempt was made to introduce severe restrictions next winter (like no household mixing) compliance may be very low if we have high vaccine take up would anyone else agree?

Also just thinking about the historic aspect. Is there anytime in the history of infections diseases in human society that we have had as restrictive control measure on the population that we have for Covid 19? I know that for Spanish Flu at least in some parts of the US there were restrictions on large gatherings but nothing AFAIK anting like we have now like any gathering indoors prohibited except for work purposes. I don't think pubs closed during the Spanish Flu or even theatres? I am not sure what we had for the Great Plague in the 1600s I did read that they had pub/tavern closures in London if true this would be the first time that pubs have closed due to an epidemic since the Great Plague?

The 2011 UK pandemic plan did not even raise the possibility of restricting large events/gatherings being helpful never mind anything as severe as we had now although this envisaged a flu type pandemic rather than a SARS type one - so how do you thing we have got into this situation. Sorry if that was a bit long but I am someone who always likes reassurance in the face of anxiety etc.

 

[bramling]

You can't put off elections for ever.

If the United States can hold an election in the middle of the pandemic, then there is no reason why we can't do the same.

They may not care about destroying the economy now, but eventually something will happen to make them care.

I am old enough to remember the inner city riots of 1981, and most people will be aware of the riots that happened in the summer of 2011.

Sooner or later something will happen to set off another series of protests. Almost every week we are seeing anti lockdown demonstrations happening up and down the country.

I do get the feeling the current lot of politicians have almost thrown in the towel. Johnson for sure, there’s been enough rumours about him wanting to step down that there’s surely got to be some truth to them. Does anyone seriously think the likes of Priti Patel or Gavin Williamson have a medium-term future (apart from themselves, since they lack self-awareness?!)?

This just leaves Sunak, and I’m beginning to wonder that he’s now thrown in the towel too, with the only solution that he now seems to be able to offer being repeated furlough extension.

The only potential saviour is the vaccine, but this isn’t going to come quick enough to resolve the dilemma over what they do with the 30-something female WFH lockdown enthusiasts.

In many ways they have created an absolutely perfect storm, a brown-stuff storm.

 

[duncanp]

I am not sure what we had for the Great Plague in the 1600s I did read that they had pub/tavern closures in London if true this would be the first time that pubs have closed due to an epidemic since the Great Plague?

Pubs were not closed during the 1665 plague, but there were some restrictive measures that we would recognise today.

This is from an article I found online

London’s commentators and authorities advocated and implemented a wide range of spatial containment measures designed to stop the invisible enemy in its tracks. The best-known of these is the forcible quarantining of infected people and other ‘inmates’ within their households for a period of between four and ten weeks; accompanied by the practice of painting a foot-long red cross on the door, this has given us one of the most enduring images of the 1665 outbreak. However, public health efforts went far beyond this. To eradicate toxic miasma, the city’s streets and channels were scoured and scrubbed, pet and stray animals were exterminated, and bonfires fragranced with ‘sweet odours and costly ointments’ such as juniper were set. In terms of social distancing, ‘publique meetings’ and ‘all extraordinary concourses of people… in the streets’ were prohibited; this included fairs and burials, the latter to be ‘done by night’ and without ‘publick assemblies’.

Unsurprisingly given the consensus that ‘promiscuously conversing with one another, do readily propagate the infection’, environments designed for sociability such as public houses, coffeehouses, and other intoxicating spaces were specifically targeted as vectors of contagion. A national proclamation issued by Charles II in 1666 ordered that ‘no more alehouses be licensed than are absolutely necessary in each city’, while citywide plague orders drawn up by the mayor and aldermen the previous year (based closely on previous directives) identified ‘disorderly tipling in taverns, alehouses, coffee-houses and cellars’ as ‘the greatest occasion of dispersing the plague’, and (re)imposed a 9pm curfew. As well as the menace posed by promiscuous conversing, these sites were dangerous in other ways. Physician Gideon Harvey included alehouses (along with chandler’s shops, churchyards, poultries, and shambles) in his roster of ‘close, dirty, stinking, and infected places’, while religiously inclined commentators feared they provoked divine retribution by inciting the sin of drunkenness and gluttony; as one writer explained, in drinking houses ‘the infection might spread and disperse, by reason of the sin, as well as the commerce and throng’. While, unlike today, intoxicating spaces were not subject to mandated and wholesale closure, they do seem to have been avoided by the risk-averse; in February 1666, normally enthusiastic coffeehouse-goer Samuel Pepys reported a trip ‘[w]ith Moore to the coffee-house, the first time I have been there’, and expressed surprise that it was ‘very full, and company it seems hath been there all the plague time’.

 

[brad465]

I do get the feeling the current lot of politicians have almost thrown in the towel. Johnson for sure, there’s been enough rumours about him wanting to step down that there’s surely got to be some truth to them. Does anyone seriously think the likes of Priti Patel or Gavin Williamson have a medium-term future (apart from themselves, since they lack self-awareness?!)?

This just leaves Sunak, and I’m beginning to wonder that he’s now thrown in the towel too, with the only solution that he now seems to be able to offer being repeated furlough extension.

The only potential saviour is the vaccine, but this isn’t going to come quick enough to resolve the dilemma over what they do with the 30-something female WFH lockdown enthusiasts.

In many ways they have created an absolutely perfect storm, a brown-stuff storm.

This is another reason why despite all the doom and gloom I can see the whole thing struggling to be sustained more and more as the year progresses: the visible fatigue and increasing incompetence in Johnson, Hancock and others in Government will come to a head and they'll be out the door either on health grounds or through dismissal by their own party.

 

[87electric]

China is the blueprint for the West and that will be the new normal. Once the UK is on its knees and the majority can not support themselves there will be a reliance upon the State for survival and that will dictate the future. Furlough is but a taster of sorts. Independence will cease to exist. 2 years of lockdowns will achieve this aim quite easily. This is the transformation that will happen whether you believe it or not. The goalposts continue to shift and the can continues to be kicked down the road.

 

[Class 33]

If some form of lockdown lasts until Easter or just before, it will not happen quietly: calls from affected businesses, chiefly hospitality and the arts, will turn into near-constant screaming in the media; the Tory backbenchers against all this will do the same in Parliament and the media too (Steve Baker already appears to be in early stages of a leadership challenge rally cry), and if we get even just a few days of nice weather near the end of March, the conditions exist for public protesting (there have been some small protests in this lockdown so far so I expect they'll continue, but won't say it'll be rioting just yet).

Furthermore if the current trend of decreasing infections, soon to be combined with decreasing deaths and hospitalisations as this vaccine rollout continues, all of the above have good foundations to make their feelings known.

Yes, if indeed god forbid this national lockdown does drag on till Easter, I expect thousands of businesses will be fuming about it on the effects it's having on their businesses and their livelihoods. And I really hope they kick up a fuss about it, along with Tory backbenchers and hopefully more MP's from opposition parties too.

The number of infections are heading down, and whilst the daily deaths are currently horrendous, they along with the hospitals stats will soon start falling week on week within the next couple of weeks. And the more and more these stats heads down, there will be less and less justifications to keep any form of lockdowns and restrictions going.

I really hope that 3 months, or 4 months at the most, that we're in a much better place than we have been for these past 10 months. As mentioned previously, Hancock said last month "Everyone's going to have a fantastic summer, doing what they all enjoy again.". Let's hope that turns out to be true Mr Hancock. Also Robert Jenrick said last month "If everyone can just bear with these restrictions for just a few more months, then we'll be out of all this.". Again Mr Jenrick, we hope that turns out to be true.

 

[bramling]

This is another reason why despite all the doom and gloom I can see the whole thing struggling to be sustained more and more as the year progresses: the visible fatigue and increasing incompetence in Johnson, Hancock and others in Government will come to a head and they'll be out the door either on health grounds or through dismissal by their own party.

I’d say it’s a certainty there will be plenty of political upset over the late spring, early summer and early autumn periods.

The big issue of course is who would actually want to take over.

 

[yorksrob]

Pubs were not closed during the 1665 plague, but there were some restrictive measures that we would recognise today.

This is from an article I found online

It comes to something when the public health response to the Great Plague was more balanced and proportionate than the current regulations.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Stop repeating this nonsense. The virus doesn't care what date of the year it is, how long the daylight hours are, or what the weather is like. It responds to people and their actions. If people hole up indoors either because the nights are dark and its a bit wet and rainy, or because it is too hot and they want the cool of being indoors and shelter from the sun, it will have the same effect in increasing the transmission. But humans have the ability to break that corrolation by adjusting their behaviour.

If what you say was true, South Africa and Brazil would not currently be having some of the biggest spikes in transmission, with new variants and mutations.

Its not nonsense its proven fact and there are many peer reviewed articles available like

As to whether Covid19 will moderated the same way is a fair point and we certainly shouldn't rely upon it but neither should we ignore that it maybe a driver of reduced transmission not just the lockdown measures.

You are also correct that people behaviour is the root of transmission and it remains concerning that the govt won't be clear about where transmission is occurring. The weekly flu epidemic report gives us a clue to settings managed by bodies but that is 15-20% of total at best do where is the rest coming from?

If some form of lockdown lasts until Easter or just before, it will not happen quietly: calls from affected businesses, chiefly hospitality and the arts, will turn into near-constant screaming in the media; the Tory backbenchers against all this will do the same in Parliament and the media too (Steve Baker already appears to be in early stages of a leadership challenge rally cry), and if we get even just a few days of nice weather near the end of March, the conditions exist for public protesting (there have been some small protests in this lockdown so far so I expect they'll continue, but won't say it'll be rioting just yet).

Furthermore if the current trend of decreasing infections, soon to be combined with decreasing deaths and hospitalisations as this vaccine rollout continues, all of the above have good foundations to make their feelings known.

With all opposition parties totally wedded to a harsher lockdown than we have now and the likes of Scotland with very manageable rates not relaxing one bit all the CRG may do is stir up a bit of a debate nothing will change until at least Easter. You can see that BoJo now totally pro lockdown and until everyone over 50 is vaccinated he isn't going to budge I fear this time having messed up on previous occasions. The media just banging on about the death rate won't help either especially as they never explain that todays large figure is still an aggregation of catch up over many weeks.

The main problem remains hospitalisations with another tally of 1000 added on 18/1(latest figs) making it the highest one day figure yet. NHS is under severe pressure and how long before someone decides high death rates are as a result of doctors having to prioritise won't help. My take is early February before we can see hospitalisations and deaths coming off peaks and then the environment maybe more conducive for pushing for lockdown relaxation roadmap.

 

[bramling]

Its not nonsense its proven fact and there are many peer reviewed articles available like

As to whether Covid19 will moderated the same way is a fair point and we certainly shouldn't rely upon it but neither should we ignore that it maybe a driver of reduced transmission not just the lockdown measures.

You are also correct that people behaviour is the root of transmission and it remains concerning that the govt won't be clear about where transmission is occurring. The weekly flu epidemic report gives us a clue to settings managed by bodies but that is 15-20% of total at best do where is the rest coming from?


With all opposition parties totally wedded to a harsher lockdown than we have now and the likes of Scotland with very manageable rates not relaxing one bit all the CRG may do is stir up a bit of a debate nothing will change until at least Easter. You can see that BoJo now totally pro lockdown and until everyone over 50 is vaccinated he isn't going to budge I fear this time having messed up on previous occasions. The media just banging on about the death rate won't help either especially as they never explain that todays large figure is still an aggregation of catch up over many weeks.

The main problem remains hospitalisations with another tally of 1000 added on 18/1(latest figs) making it the highest one day figure yet. NHS is under severe pressure and how long before someone decides high death rates are as a result of doctors having to prioritise won't help. My take is early February before we can see hospitalisations and deaths coming off peaks and then the environment maybe more conducive for pushing for lockdown relaxation roadmap.

I agree BJ is fixated on lockdowns - I think his sole motivation now is to salvage some element of reputation, so that he doesn’t go down in history as the PM who messed up Covid. It doesn’t help that by this time next week we seem certain to have passed the 100,000 deaths reported figure, which no doubt will be all over the news when it happens.

Where BJ has perhaps miscalculated is that he will be just as much detested for being the prime minister who ruined many people financially, especially those who had for example spent their lives building up small and medium sized businesses. He’s too out-of-touch to have even thought about that aspect of things. Ditto messing up the education of a whole generation of children.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I agree BJ is fixated on lockdowns - I think his sole motivation now is to salvage some element of reputation, so that he doesn’t go down in history as the PM who messed up Covid. It doesn’t help that by this time next week we seem certain to have passed the 100,000 deaths reported figure, which no doubt will be all over the news when it happens.

Where BJ has perhaps miscalculated is that he will be just as much detested for being the prime minister who ruined many people financially, especially those who had for example spent their lives building up small and medium sized businesses. He’s too out-of-touch to have even thought about that aspect of things. Ditto messing up the education of a whole generation of children.

Trouble is too many people are currently being insulated from the reality of what will happen but that will be laid bare when all the support mechanisms finally end. The young generation will get there payback but long after he has gone.

 

[HSTEd]

Trouble is too many people are currently being insulated from the reality of what will happen but that will be laid bare when all the support mechanisms finally end. The young generation will get there payback but long after he has gone.

The support mechanisms won't end until the accumulated additional spending causes either a sovereign debt crisis or the beginning of mass inflation.

No Government will make a deliberate choice to initiate an economic slump.

 

[brad465]

The support mechanisms won't end until the accumulated additional spending causes either a sovereign debt crisis or the beginning of mass inflation.

No Government will make a deliberate choice to initiate an economic slump.

Have they not already initiated an economic slump then? Given how high sovereign debt currently is I don't think we have to wait long for that crisis to turn up, while if the Bank of England keeps its QE programme (which in the last year almost exactly mirrors Government borrowing) going any longer it will either risk higher inflation and/or burst bubbles that really set about an economic slump.

 

[HSTEd]

Have they not already initiated an economic slump then?

That slump was essential because it was needed to save the photogenic old people.

There is no such cause celebre for initiating the new post-support slump.
If anything ever more support will be demanded, partially because the slump will destroy the government and partially because a lot of people are in a sunk cost fallacy.

Kind of depressing when my research is how a few hundred billion pounds can decarbonise most of the economy and save the world from climate change......

 

[brad465]

That slump was essential because it was needed to save the photogenic old people.

There is no such cause celebre for initiating the new post-support slump.
If anything ever more support will be demanded, partially because the slump will destroy the government and partially because a lot of people are in a sunk cost fallacy.

Kind of depressing when my research is how a few hundred billion pounds can decarbonise most of the economy and save the world from climate change......

Not to mention that amount of money could also have massively expanded healthcare capacity and prevented a crisis like this in the first place...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Not to mention that amount of money could also have massively expanded healthcare capacity and prevented a crisis like this in the first place...

It certainly shown that the fiddling over a few billion on the borrowing at budget time being a big deal has been totally blown apart. The trouble is this spraying of cash around is just making the rich richer and drive up assets prices particularly houses making them ever more out of reach for the majority.

 

[brad465]

It certainly shown that the fiddling over a few billion on the borrowing at budget time being a big deal has been totally blown apart. The trouble is this spraying of cash around is just making the rich richer and drive up assets prices particularly houses making them ever more out of reach for the majority.

Yes the Quantitative Easing policy of the Bank of England has gone a long way to driving that; they've done it plenty since Covid took off, including £150bn in response to lockdown 2, I would not be surprised if when they next meet at the start of February there is more of this to come because of lockdown 3 and its consequences. At some point though that asset bubble will have to burst, just like it did in 2008, all because the world is trying to keep a broken economic system on life support. Myself and several others have been predicting a crash linked to such bubbles and corporate debt mounting up in response to "recovering" from 2008; the economy may have crashed from Covid, but that's not the crash being predicted, Covid will probably make the potential crash even worse because of all the resultant monetary policy going into overdrive.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Yes the Quantitative Easing policy of the Bank of England has gone a long way to driving that; they've done it plenty since Covid took off, including £150bn in response to lockdown 2, I would not be surprised if when they next meet at the start of February there is more of this to come because of lockdown 3 and its consequences. At some point though that asset bubble will have to burst, just like it did in 2008, all because the world is trying to keep a broken economic system on life support. Myself and several others have been predicting a crash linked to such bubbles and corporate debt mounting up in response to "recovering" from 2008; the economy may have crashed from Covid, but that's not the crash being predicted, Covid will probably make the potential crash even worse because of all the resultant monetary policy going into overdrive.

We are addicted to QE and Sunak knows this but he must have caved in because he thought his chances of future leadership rested on how he was judged over spraying money into the economy. Lets hope he hold the line come the budget as we are in last chance saloon here over pricking the bubble.

 

[DorkingMain]

I do get the feeling the current lot of politicians have almost thrown in the towel. Johnson for sure, there’s been enough rumours about him wanting to step down that there’s surely got to be some truth to them. Does anyone seriously think the likes of Priti Patel or Gavin Williamson have a medium-term future (apart from themselves, since they lack self-awareness?!)?

This just leaves Sunak, and I’m beginning to wonder that he’s now thrown in the towel too, with the only solution that he now seems to be able to offer being repeated furlough extension.

The only potential saviour is the vaccine, but this isn’t going to come quick enough to resolve the dilemma over what they do with the 30-something female WFH lockdown enthusiasts.

In many ways they have created an absolutely perfect storm, a brown-stuff storm.

Sunak seems to do an exceptional job of dodging responsibility for anything, and only appearing when there's free stuff to be handed out. I suspect when all of this COVID disaster has to be paid for, he might not look quite so slick as he does now.

 

[HSTEd]

We don't have any real data on the first dose thing yet, the Israelis have not deigned to actually release their dataset.

 

[DorkingMain]

We don't have any real data on the first dose thing yet, the Israelis have not deigned to actually release their dataset.

What's interesting about the first dose thing is that AstraZeneca's guidance seems to suggest a 12-week gap is perfectly fine, whereas the Pfizer guidance makes no such suggestion. In either case I suspect it will offer some level of protection, and might even stave off serious illness / death but it really doesn't sound like "protection" in itself.

I have a horrible suspicion that those who received the Pfizer vaccine 12 weeks apart may end up finding that causes problems, whereas those who received the AZ won't. And because the majority will receive the AZ (100mil doses ordered vs 40 mil Pfizer), there will be some sweeping under the rug about the significance of the decision to delay, because it won't have had the negative effect on those who received the AZ vaccine.

 

[HSTEd]

What's interesting about the first dose thing is that AstraZeneca's guidance seems to suggest a 12-week gap is perfectly fine, whereas the Pfizer guidance makes no such suggestion. In either case I suspect it will offer some level of protection, and might even stave off serious illness / death but it really doesn't sound like "protection" in itself.

Whatever Pfizer actually think about the delay, they will never tell us, because they will be instructed by their lawyers not to make any recommendations outside the specific case tested by the trials.

From first principles we would not expect the 12 week delay to reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine.

I'm afraid the only way we are going to get any study on single dose effectiveness that is worth a damn is by seeing what happens over the next few weeks.
Making the simplifying assumption that the people who got second doses so far are almost all people who got the vaccine very early, the earliest single dose people left got their vaccine some time before the 20th of December.

In about six weeks the second doses will take off in earnest.

 

[Jonny]

According to reports the easing of lockdown will start in early spring and will be a return to the tiers system. To be taken out of lock down a region must have a fall in deaths, fall in hospital admissions and some aged 50-70 vaccinated.



The quote is the Sun, but they're putting stuff together from Raab doing interviews this morning and from the headline article in the Times yesterday, which said a similar thing. The Times article talked about cabinet agreement that easing of restrictions couldn't wait until everyone had been vaccinated. It's further down in this article, but behind a paywall.



Apparently this time there's broad agreement rather than pro lockdown & anti lockdown camps within cabinet, with ministers saying privately that they're willing to go against SAGE on this.

If you head to the BBC news paper headlines, or Sky news paper headlines you can see the Times front page.

The authorities will have to be careful of Section 45E of their lockdown-enabling act of choice, otherwise the rules themselves could become illegal, if they are at risk of being seen as coercion to medical treatment.

Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984

An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to the control of disease and to the establishment and functions of port health authorities, including enactments relating to burial and cremation and to the regulation of common lodging–houses and canal boats, with amendments to give effect to...

www.legislation.gov.uk

Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 ​

45EMedical treatment
(1)Regulations under section 45B or 45C may not include provision requiring a person to undergo medical treatment.
(2)“ Medical treatment ” includes vaccination and other prophylactic treatment.

It will be very interesting to see.

 

[Bantamzen]

I am not sure I can stand it much longer.

I know where you are coming from, I feel exactly the same.

I agree BJ is fixated on lockdowns - I think his sole motivation now is to salvage some element of reputation, so that he doesn’t go down in history as the PM who messed up Covid. It doesn’t help that by this time next week we seem certain to have passed the 100,000 deaths reported figure, which no doubt will be all over the news when it happens.

Where BJ has perhaps miscalculated is that he will be just as much detested for being the prime minister who ruined many people financially, especially those who had for example spent their lives building up small and medium sized businesses. He’s too out-of-touch to have even thought about that aspect of things. Ditto messing up the education of a whole generation of children.

I think its worse than that, it isn't just BoJo that's fixated on lockdowns the entire cabinet, SAGE, the media, and much of the general public are completely sold on the idea that lockdowns will work but only if they are severe enough. So when Lockdown v1.0 didn't work, we needed v2.0, v3.0 and no doubt at least some of the aforementioned will demand v4.0, v5.0 and beyond because, well you know lockdowns work, we just haven't don't the previous 1,2,3,4 lockdowns right. And anyone that says otherwise is a conspiracist / anti-vaxxer / mask denier / Brexiteer (yes some prominent lockdown supporters use this) / granny killer.

 

[Yew]

might even stave off serious illness / death but it really doesn't sound like "protection" in itself.

That does sound very much like protection.

 

[island]

The authorities will have to be careful of Section 45E of their lockdown-enabling act of choice, otherwise the rules themselves could become illegal, if they are at risk of being seen as coercion to medical treatment.



It will be very interesting to see.

I very much doubt the law will require people to get vaccinated – though if the government wanted to make such a law, it would just need to make it primary legislation – but I strongly expect a raft of “you can’t do X unless you get vaccinated” coming down the tracks later in the year. We have already seen it with Saga cruises.

 

[takno]

I very much doubt the law will require people to get vaccinated – though if the government wanted to make such a law, it would just need to make it primary legislation – but I strongly expect a raft of “you can’t do X unless you get vaccinated” coming down the tracks later in the year. We have already seen it with Saga cruises.

I just assumed Saga were doing it as a way to enforce their over-50s preferred rule tbh

 

[Yew]

I very much doubt the law will require people to get vaccinated – though if the government wanted to make such a law, it would just need to make it primary legislation – but I strongly expect a raft of “you can’t do X unless you get vaccinated” coming down the tracks later in the year. We have already seen it with Saga cruises.

De facto, is there any difference?

 

[Watershed]

De facto, is there any difference?

Not really.

It's no different to how British citizens have the absolute right of re-entry - but the Govt can prosecute those who arrive without a test, if their airline has broken the law by letting them board.

There are plenty of secondary measures they can legally take which circumvent such niceties as Sec. 45E.