Dan Wootton: Surely, there can be no Plan C now

The government, Sturgeon, Drakeford, the BBC and the doomsday duo are going to do all they can to cancel Christmas again, aren’t they? And then January. And then February. And then probably Christmas 2022 while they’re at it.

As cases of Omicron – a variant that may well help to transform Covid-19 into nothing more than seasonal flu – spread like wildfire, the push to terrify us all into staying home by stealth is in full force.

Before the press conference started and when ITV's political editor Robert Peston thought he wasn't being filmed, he didn't wear his mask. Then a minute or so before the Prime Minister appeared, he put it on.

The establishment don’t live in the real world, do they? They’re the elite – happy to be locked up and working from home in white collar jobs because they live in expensive mansions in the country, with highly paid tutors able to educate their kids via Zoom.

But Boris Johnson’s humiliation by his own MPs yesterday should teach him one lesson: If he even thinks about locking us down again, his time as Prime Minister could be up. For months, our once swashbuckling Brexit hero has been controlled by doomsday SAGE advisers, Covid Cabinet hysterics like Michael Gove and former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, and a media that has realised fear sells.

But he can no longer ignore the 100 brave Tory backbenchers who stood up to the man who secured so many of them their jobs at an election just two years ago. Only Theresa May suffered a bigger Tory rebellion since the war over Brexit.

Surely, surely, there can be no Plan C now. We must learn to live Covid once and for all, no matter how fast Omicron spreads. And stop ignoring the scientists who don’t fit the “panic now” narrative. Like Robert Dingwall, a government Covid adviser, from Nottingham Trent University, who says omicron may be no worse than an average annual flu pandemic.

"The omicron situation seems to be increasingly absurd. There is obviously a lot of snobbery about South African science and medicine but their top people are as good as any you would find in a more universally developed country."

“They clearly don’t feel that the elite panic over here is justified, even allowing for the demographic differences in vulnerability – which are probably more than cancelled by the higher vaccination rate. My gut feeling is that omicron is very much like the sort of flu pandemic we planned for,"

"a lot of sickness absence from work in a short period, which will create difficulties for public services and economic activity, but not of such a severity as to be a big problem for the NHS and the funeral business.”

That’s not to say we won’t take the massive increase in cases seriously, but it has to be down to personal responsibility and sensible guidance – not terrifying propaganda and new laws.

Take regular tests? Sure. Wear a mask? If you want to, but it provides no path out of this nightmare. Get boosted now, as their new red slogan reads? Absolutely if you feel comfortable to do so. Protect the most vulnerable? Definitely.

But it’s now up to us to stop this 20-month Covid merry go round from hell – because our leaders are never going to. The Queen is planning to keep calm and carry on with her Christmas plans, with sensible measures in place – everyone else should follow her lead and do the same.