I welcome that this Thursday the 27th sees the return in England to Covid Plan A measures from the existing Plan B. This follows the incredibly successful booster vaccine programme and the best-case Omicron scenarios playing out.
This means that people will no longer be advised to work from home, face coverings will no longer be mandatory in indoor venues, and organisations will be able to choose whether to require NHS Covid Passes.
On 8 December, the Prime Minister announced a move to Plan B following the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. The measures introduced helped to control the spread of Omicron, bought time to assess the variant and allowed the NHS to rapidly expand the booster programme to strengthen defences. This was the right call and again it’s the right call now to move back to Plan A.
Having legal restrictions in place is never ideal and can have all sorts of unintended consequences. Public health guidance remains in place, saying that people should continue to wear a face covering in crowded and enclosed spaces, especially where you may come into contact with people you do not normally meet. This is common sense and I will continue to wear a mask in shops in order to help protect others.
The pandemic is not over but the worst effects of it for this winter are reducing. It is still wise to be careful in order to reduce the risks of catching and spreading Covid-19. Cases are still high, especially in Crawley. We are currently running at about 1% of the town being recorded as getting infected every week. I am optimistic that this will be much lower by the end of the winter in a few weeks’ time.
Throughout the pandemic, the government has maintained a balanced approach to restrictions, balancing individual freedoms with public health concerns. While no one always gets everything right, I think our government has got the big decisions right and we can look forward to a much better year ahead, being able to safely do things we haven’t done for such a long time.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
26th January 2022
