Freedom Day comes a little later – it is the right decision

Editorial: There is widespread acceptance in the country at large that the government must err on the side of caution

While delay in a full reopening of the economy may be necessary, the personal and commercial losses will be serious (Getty/iStock)

Freedom Day comes a little later. We will get the details of the revised reopening plan for the UK economy on Monday but it is clear that there will not be a reversion to the full freedoms of the world before February last year for a few weeks yet. Following the surge in infections from the Delta variant, that 21 June date for ending the remaining elements of the lockdown will slip a little.

In human terms this will for many people be profoundly saddening. But there is widespread acceptance in the country at large that the government will be right to err on the side of caution. Indeed, had it been more cautious in the past it would have contained this and other variants more effectively. Mercifully, with a double dose the vaccines seem able to contain this variant. As the rollout continues it is reasonable to expect this burst of the pandemic to be of a much lesser order of magnitude from previous waves.

But while delay in a full reopening of the economy may be necessary and right, the personal and commercial losses will be serious. The performing arts and the hospitality industry have been particularly savaged.

It is important however not to lose sight of the fact that the economy is recovering swiftly from the damage of the past year. At the end of April – we don’t yet have May figures – GDP was 3.7 per cent below the level of February 2020, the last month of normal activity. It will have grown further in May with the return of indoor dining, and it is plausible that the economy could be past its previous peak by the end of the summer. What happens after that will depend on the extent to which the current mini-boom is merely catch-up, with people spending money saved during the lockdowns, and to what extent the new patterns of work and spending result in real efficiencies in the economy.

While it will be a relief for the economy to be back where it was at the beginning of last year there are two qualifications to be made.

The first is that there are many losers as well as some winners from the disruption of the past months. Some parts of the economy, such as online retailing, are already way past their previous peaks. But that has come at the cost of traditional shops, many of which are struggling or sadly have gone under. Economics talks about the big numbers, which as noted are recovering swiftly. But in the real world of human beings the ranks of the losers much outnumber those of the winners. The plight of the losers will be made worse by the further delay in fully reopening the economy.

The other is that getting the economy back to where it was is very different from getting it back to where, in the absence of the pandemic, it should have been. That will be the next challenge: sustaining growth in the months ahead so that people can rebuild their lives. That is a task for the government of course but in reality it is a task for all.

This is partly about economics – about the ways in which we work and ways we spend money. For example, companies must think through ways in which their people can be more productive: what have we all learnt from working from home, for those that have been able to do so? But it is also about human relations. How can people who have been fortunate in the past 18 months help those who are less lucky?

The country should hope that these will indeed be the final weeks of lockdown, but whatever the uncertainties ahead we should try to make the new normal a little better than the old normal.