Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said there will not be any large gatherings that will be permitted to take place in celebrating the New Year of 2022.
Khan stated his reason for doing this, for which this decision has been made to ensure ‘the safety of Londoners must come first’.
The new restrictions are in response to the recently reported figures by Britain’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, that above 60% of all Covid cases in London are of the Omicron variant. Let alone the increasing rise of the Omicron coronavirus strain, the Delta variant cases have also risen.
Javid admitted that ‘people don’t want to see anymore restrictions’. This is seen by protesters who attended the anti-Covid mandate protests which happened over the weekend. He later told the BBC that, ‘at the same time, people want to be safe, for themselves, for their family for their friends’.
Former Manchester United footballer, Gary Neville, has responded against the restrictions saying, ‘this is a stealth lockdown’ and that Prime Minister, Boris Johnson ‘needs to go now!’.
Whether people or not obey the restrictions, is a concerning issue for the UK government. They will need to decide whether they need to increase police spending on further large gatherings which may appear on New Years Day in the form of protesting against these restrictions.
The plan on an increased spending for the London Metropolitan police service, will divert funding away from the NHS services, which may inevitably lead to an increase in Covid related deaths and even further clamp-downs on non-essential services.
There is at least 3,000 hospitalisations per day in England. Boris Johnson urged people yesterday to ‘please get vaccinated’ at the alarming news of people being admitted to hospital as he mentioned Covid cases are ‘rising quite steeply in London’.
Words: Tadhg Ormond
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