UK adopts rigorous health safety measures to contain COVID-19 spread as winters approach

Britons are adopting rigorous health safety measures such as wearing a protective face-covering in crowded indoor spaces, maintaining physical distance, and washing hands frequently to mitigate the spread of the variant as winters approach. Earlier Office for National Statistics (ONS) data suggested that nine in 10 people in the UK still preferred to remain masked even when fully vaccinated to avoid the COVID-19 spread even when the Boris Johnson administration did not mandate the mask-wearing across public venues for the fully jabbed.

British press reports that even when the government ended the restrictions and lockdown months ago, England is choosing not to let guards down, and instead “proceed with caution.” Earlier, last week the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also eased the UK COVID-19 travel rules replacing the existing traffic light system with an eased single red list effective October 4. This implies that the Brits fully vaccinated will no longer require a pre-departure test while returning from non-red list areas. While government critics and several Labour Party members expressed concerns over the British Prime Minister’s abandoning of the most pandemic-related restrictions, the Brits were choosing to bank on the voluntary restraint as the harsh winter approaches.

“The story of this government in the pandemic is too little, too late,” said Layla Moran, an opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker who heads the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus told the Associated Press. 

Britons encouraged to adhere to 'self-guided restrictions'

UK lawmakers including the Shadow Transport Secretary Jim McMahon, had stressed the role of PCR testing and tracing strategy, saying that it plays a critical role in controlling the spread of the COVID-19 variant and that the government must continue this surveillance. But despite the controversies surrounding the ease of restrictions, Britons are self encouraged to adhere to the self-guided restrictions even when the British PM continues to appearance maskless at the overly crowded ventilated House of Commons with no physical distancing with the other maskless Conservative lawmakers. Criticizing the Boris administration, opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker Moran stated that the pandemic was not over with, and some of the hospitals in the UK were already witnessing an upsurge of coronavirus patients in intensive care units. 

“Unless the government starts to do something differently, I don’t think we’re going to be able to avert the worst this winter,” opposition lawmaker Moran said.

The UK has vaccinated over 65 percent of its total population in one of the world’s most sweeping inoculation campaigns. The country has sustained more than 135,000 coronavirus-related fatalities. Lately, as the UK witnessed a spike in hospital admissions, Johnson told a briefing that the number of unvaccinated persons admitted to hospitals with the Coronavirus disease has been “concerning,” adding that close to three-quarters that needed medical intervention were unvaccinated. Last week, the UK announced that it will send an invitation for the COVID booster jab to one and a half million people, approximately 15 Lakh, as the country marks the beginning of the new phase of the vaccination programme. 

Image: AP