How Boris Johnson can make Christmas work in the time of Covid

The government has decided to lift the coronavirus restrictions for a short period over the Christmas break and allow people to enjoy some form of celebration with families and friends over the festive period.

There are no public health grounds for lifting the current restrictions. Covid-19 will not take a break for the Christmas holidays. SAGE, the government’s advisory body, has suggested that for each day’s easing of lockdown rules, five days of tighter ones might be needed. That would extend the economic damage further. There is also the riposte that those following religions other than the established Church have not enjoyed a similar level of freedom for their celebrations.

But Boris Johnson is not a prime minister who wants to be the Grinch. He is the kind of politician who wants to be loved. And he does have one good reason for a brief lifting of the constraints besides the sense of giving the nation a Christmas present at the end of an extraordinarily tough year. People are running out of stamina for lockdown and its variations. Many have been unable to see their closest relatives, including people they deeply love who are near the end of their lives. Livelihoods have collapsed. The danger of telling people now that they cannot join their families at Christmas is that they may be infuriated, or disobey the rules, or both. Imposing a rule that is likely to be widely disobeyed and cannot be enforced would damage the government’s ability to steer the nation through the remainder of the crisis.

So having decided with that justification to give the nation a few days of celebrations, here are the steps he should take to limit the fallout:

1. Explain the need for curbs to follow Christmas

Johnson should set out the risks and trade-offs behind his Christmas decision. The temporary festive relaxation is a chance for the prime minister to reset how coronavirus decisions are communicated to the public, and Johnson should take this opportunity to explain the difficult compromises he has to consider when making these kinds of decisions. This means being clear with the public about the different kinds of advice – epidemiological, economic, behavioural and more – that must be weighed against one another.

Being 'guided by the science' was the ministerial mantra of the first phase of the pandemic. By sharing greater insight into the complexities of decision making, the prime minister can help (re)build trust with the public.

2. Encourage people to have smaller gatherings than usual

Supermarkets have anticipated that, getting ready to supply much smaller turkeys. In the US, the media are full of stories of people planning much smaller Thanksgivings this week. Give clear guidance on how to limit domestic transmission – ventilation, distancing indoors, and so on.

3. Set out clear rules for students and care homes

Students need clear rules about whether they can go home. Here, the testing regime, or a quarantine regime (and many are already in a version of isolation) should be able to help. But the rules will need to be set as early as possible to enable them to take the required steps.

Similarly, clear and early guidance should be provided for care homes. Steer care homes towards a more consistent – and humane – policy of access for relatives. Some of the most painful stories of real desperation have come from relatives unable to comfort elderly relatives who may not understand why they are being isolated. But care homes have often been able to set those terms themselves with no easy recourse other than withdrawing the resident from their care. Even if done for the best reasons of protecting their health and lives, this needs to be balanced against family interests – the homes will need guidance to feel able to do that.

4. Improve communications

The government should vastly improve its communication of the rules – the Christmas relaxation and the tiers that will be used before and after it. People were already confused about what they could do in the different tiers, and the exact rules are set to change again.

5. Ensure fairness and consistency across UK

The Christmas break needs to be a co-ordinated one. The government has been right to work with devolved administrations to ensure a common set of rules. Divergence has added to people’s confusion and temptations to break the rules.

6. Work with mayors

The clashes with local mayors over whether a region was going into a higher tier of curbs should be avoided. The government has taken much of the pain out of this row by extending the furlough scheme nationwide, although self-employed people remain exposed. It should now be explicit about the criteria used to determine whether a region goes into a tier, such as infection rates and strain on local medical services.

7. Don’t extend the relaxing of rules to New Year

The prime minister can justify a Christmas break to enable people to see family and friends at the traditional time. That should not extend to new year celebrations.

8. Use the gift of a Christmas break to urge uptake of vaccines

Johnson is a politician who likes to offer hope; on the vaccine front, he can now do so with good reason. But he should be clear that if people want to resume normal lives, they should be prepared to have the vaccine. The government needs to think carefully about whether it is going to exhort all residents to have the vaccine or just those most vulnerable to Covid-19. Getting that right is its next big challenge. It will determine whether the compact between government and citizens that has been strained in an extraordinary year will hold good in the next one.