Alvin M. Keeling 
THE end of Covid restrictions in England yesterday is an opportunity to say goodbye to much nonsense, not to say crime, that has been associated with Britain’s response to the virus over the past two years. It is both easy and painful to remember the residents kicked out of hospitals to carry Covid into nursing homes; the depletion of PPE stocks and the resulting scramble for more, often from dubious sources; modeling errors; the £40bn of loans that are unlikely to be collected; the reluctance to adapt leave schemes to the situations of many workers; advice on masks that seemed to be dictated by, first, availability, then psychology; educational policies that disadvantaged students from poorer families – and, of course, government decisions that were either delayed or premature and almost invariably unreliable. To these and many others, of course, must be added the decision to close the churches even to the clergy.
Unfortunately, the government seems to have introduced absurdity into the next phase of public life. Chief among them is the incompatibility between the assurance that people will, of their own free will, stay at home if they find out they have contracted Covid. . . and the impending dismantling of the testing regime, so people won’t be able to know if they have the virus unless they pay commercial prices. The Queen, for example, was referred to this week as having “mild, cold-like symptoms”. After April 1, she will still have access to a free Covid test due to her age. For many young people she will come into contact with, however, even the £5.99 price tag is out of reach, especially if the old advice to test multiple times is followed. Starting in April, people experiencing similar symptoms will be tempted to assume they just have a mild cold. People on low wages will have no other choice, no matter how severe their symptoms, no matter how contagious they are.
It was disturbing to hear the cynicism with which the Prime Minister’s announcement was met. If the law has been treated so cavalierly by lawmakers, it bodes ill for compliance with future guidelines. Science advisers, intimidated by the recent barrage of criticism from libertarians and skeptics, have voiced a muted wish for caution. The fear is that Downing Street’s motivation is mainly to relegate its past mistakes to history: these parties may have been technically illegal at the time, but no one believes the law should be enforced now, do they? it not? But if politicians are not held accountable for their mistakes and lessons are not learned, the infection of irresponsibility and improvisational decision-making that has characterized this government will spread throughout the body politic. No vaccine has yet been discovered to combat this.
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