A new normal
¶8.193. Much of the period between May 2021 and May 2022 was characterised by the race to ensure the widest vaccine coverage possible and the need to protect the population against the emergence of potentially more transmissible and more deadly variants. As vaccine coverage increased, there was an increasing preparedness within the governments to tolerate a higher level of infection and death, so as to avoid adding further to the significant economic and societal harms that had occurred through the imposition of stringent restrictions. However, there was no active decision or agreement as to what that level was or ought to be.
¶8.194. The approach of the UK government and devolved administrations in the autumn of 2021 carried some risk. An immune escape variant had been repeatedly identified as the biggest strategic risk. It was fortunate that the Omicron variant, which emerged in mid-December 2021, came after the vaccine rollout was well progressed. The sheer number of infections demonstrates that, in the event that vaccines had been less effective or the Omicron variant had been as severe as previous variants in terms of morbidity and mortality, the consequences would have been disastrous.
¶8.195. The UK government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive had no detailed contingency plan for a variant with greater vaccine-escape properties, save for, where considered, a return to previous restrictions. The Welsh Government's Coronavirus Control Plan: Autumn and Winter 2021 Update did provide for an "alert levels framework" – one of which, Level 4, amounted to a lockdown.523 Coronavirus Control Plan: Autumn and Winter 2021 Update, Welsh Government, October 2021, pp6, 28 (https://www.gov.wales/ sites/default/files/publications/2021-10/coronavirus-control-plan-autumn-and-winter-2021-update.pdf; INQ000082368) However, this plan would have been of greater utility had it provided clearer defined thresholds for possible further action.
¶8.196. The UK government's Plan B, the more pessimistic of the two contingency plans, provided for only modest interventions, which were unlikely to be able to deal adequately with the advent of a more transmissible or lethal variant, evading natural or vaccine-induced immunity. As it was, the UK government delayed the implementation of Plan B until 8 December 2021. Even when it was clear in mid‑December that the Omicron variant posed a really serious threat, the UK government declined to implement more stringent measures beyond those in its Plan B, or to return to the measures provided for by Step 2 of the COVID-19 Response – Spring 2021 roadmap. Ultimately, the UK government was spared worse by the fact that the Omicron variant turned out to be around 50% to 70% less severe than the Delta variant in a population with high immunity.
¶8.197. The measures taken by the Scottish Government with effect from 27 December 2021, in particular the pausing of large-scale events and the reintroduction of one‑metre physical distancing and table service in indoor hospitality (alongside, as with the other governments, the continued acceleration of the vaccine booster programme and the making available of free lateral flow tests), were better calibrated. The Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive Committee also acted decisively and proactively to introduce Level 2 restrictions and limits on the mixing of households and workplaces and a capacity cap for events from 26 and 27 December respectively.
439¶8.198. Remaining restrictions were lifted in England, Scotland and Wales at different times during the course of the first half of 2022, depending on the case numbers then prevailing and the number of deaths. In Northern Ireland, the collapse of the power‑sharing agreement on 3 February 2022 meant that all the existing Covid-19 regulations were withdrawn and replaced by guidance. All restrictions in the UK came to an end on 30 May 2022.
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