The rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant has forced the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, to postpone the ending of current controls by four weeks until 19 July, but neither he nor his cabinet know if this will work.
The death toll may remain very low but the numbers of confirmed infections are rising rapidly, with hospital admissions now following suit. Johnson faces growing internal opposition – and since he hates being unpopular this means his scientific advisors are likely to be far more concerned than he will admit in public.
The problem for Johnson, even while he still rides the crest of the vaccination wave, is that for more than a year of this pandemic, government action has been too little, too late. And this is despite the fact that this is a country with a national biological security strategy that, on paper, was one of the world’s best. In practice, the response has been disastrous – leading to many tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.
