Britain | Choosing to look away

Omicron and the logic of testing

Britain ponders an end to free lateral-flow tests. America is just starting

Count to ten, very slowly

ON DECEMBER 29TH Britain recorded 246,215 cases of covid-19, a number more than three times higher than the previous peak, a year ago. If Britain’s level of immunity was the same as in the winter of 2020, when almost no one had been vaccinated, this number of cases would constitute a new order of disaster. Many thousands of people would be dying every day. But thanks to vaccination, they are not. The share who die after testing positive for covid-19 is now roughly a twentieth of what it was last winter.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Look away”

Beware the bossy state

From the January 15th 2022 edition

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