It is time to reconsider the Christmas ‘amnesty’ scheduled for the UK

Editorial: As London goes into tier 3, more and more hospitals and independent experts are expressing realistic concerns about the prospect of a third wave hitting hard-pressed health services in the new year

Matt Hancock, the heakth secretary, announces that London will move into tier 3 from tomorrow (Reuters TV)

The decision to move Greater London, with parts of Essex and Hertfordshire, into tier 3 just days before the scheduled national review is a matter of concern for the whole country. For, as has been all too clear over the months of this pandemic, no part of the land, no matter how green and pleasant, can consider itself immune from Covid.

Much of the lobbying by MPs and others to move their constituencies to a lower tier is one of the many illustrations of a tendency to parochialism that has characterised the debate, as the localisation of response has spread.  

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is wise to move rapidly in London and the southeast because the coronavirus, or a variant of it, seems to be spreading even faster than the original strain. More than ever, there is no time to waste, and it is reassuring that the scientists at Porton Down have identified the genome of the new variant, and that it seems the vaccine will still work. The bigger problem, of course, is that the vaccination programme will be complete by Christmas 2021, not in a fortnight’s time.