remain as an island of calm, with the government taking relatively light-touch approach on the pandemic and having no plans to change it anytime soon. This may be owing to the very little movement in the daily infections reported by the country, in stark contrast to its neighbours in Europe. By Sunday (20 Nov), Britain’s seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases per million people was about 600, while in Slovakia, this figure had reached 1,800 and in Australia, a little over 1,500.
This week, British Parliamentarian Lord Frost hailed the lack of Coronavirus restrictions in the country, amid tightened regulations elsewhere in Europe. “I am very happy that free Britain, or at least merry England, is probably now the freest country in the world as regards COVID restrictions,” he said in an address at the Guildhall in London. “No mask rules, no vaccine passports. Long may it remain so.”
Nevertheless, the World Health Organisation (WHO) continued to remain “very worried” about the spread of the virus in Europe, with the agency’s Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, warning that more than half a million people in the continent may die due to the virus by March if countries continue to operate as “business as usual”. “COVID-19 has become once again the number one cause of mortality in our region,” he told the BBC.
