“We must replace legal obligations with advice and recommendations,” Boris Johnson told MPs last week.
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A page turns. England left behind, on Thursday January 27, almost all of the last restrictions in force to fight against Covid-19, with which, the government hopes, the population will get used to living as it does with the flu. “As the Covid becomes endemic, we must replace legal obligations with advice and recommendations”, Boris Johnson stressed last week to MPs.
This wind of freedom is timely for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, more than ever weakened at the head of the government by the holiday scandal in Downing Street in defiance of anti-coronavirus rules.
After ending a week ago the recommendation to work from home for those who can, England is now abandoning other restrictions, among the lightest in Europe, introduced in December in the face of a surge in Omicron case: obligation to wear a mask indoors in public places and a vaccination passport for events with a large audience.
Opposed to the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask in public transport, the mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced to maintain this measure in the capital.
More reluctant than the rest of the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to implement restrictions, England had, for the first time, lifted them almost entirely on July 19, nicknamed the “freedom day”. But the emergence in the fall of the Omicron variant, even more contagious than Delta, led Boris Johnson’s government to launch its “plan B”, despite the opposition of part of its majority.