Evening Standard Comment: We cannot go on being held hostage by the unvaxxed
It appears that the new strain produces more mild disease than Delta, though it is not clear whether this is because Omicron is inherently milder, rather than a reflection of the high levels of protection from vaccines and prior infection in Britain.
What the UK Health Security Agency has concluded is that Omicron is significantly more transmissible than any previous variant, and therefore the sheer number of people who become infected could still drive ever-greater hospitalisations that would put immense pressure on the NHS. That is the danger we must avoid.
Our best tool in doing so is vaccination. The vast majority of patients in London who end up in intensive care units are unjabbed. The risk they pose to their own health is substantial, but so too is that to the NHS as a whole, our economic recovery, our young people’s education and a return to normal for millions.
It cannot be right that further restrictions become necessary largely because a significant minority – up to one in three in the capital – refuse to do the right thing. Unless and until we reach many more unvaccinated people, the threat of new variants and their impact on society will remain needlessly elevated.
We cannot give up on convincing every eligible person to get vaccinated. We must counter misinformation and disinformation online. The social media companies need to step up and the government take measures to incentivise corporate responsibility.
As individuals, we should talk to our friends and family, ask if they are vaccinated, and if not, encourage them to change their minds. There is no more powerful form of communication than one trusted person talking to another.
As the pandemic in Britain approaches its third year, families are tired, workers stressed and young people are missing out on childhoods. We cannot go on indefinitely being held hostage by a relatively small group of refusniks.
There is building anger felt towards the irresponsibility and selfishness of the unvaccinated. Ultimately, this is a pandemic driven by a highly transmissible virus. As such, someone else’s vaccine status is very much everyone's business. Or put in more graceful terms by the Archbishop of Canterbury, getting the jab is about loving one’s neighbour.
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