Based on past mistakes, it would be wise for Britain to delay fully lifting lockdown

Editorial: Herd immunity is nowhere near complete. Rather than assuming the 21 June unlock will proceed unless the data goes wrong, a warning should be issued now

A delay to 21 June would come as a bitter disappointment to families and businesses; but the lesson of the pandemic is that the alternative is a longer, harsher lockdown (Getty)

Should Britain delay the relaxation of lockdown scheduled for 21 June? The short answer, working on the precautionary principle and the persistent mistakes on timings made over the past 15 months, is “yes”.

After months of improvement, driven by the lockdown imposed (albeit too tardily) in January and the success of the vaccination programme, the figures on Covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths are starting to turn upwards. The number of cases recorded of the Indian variant has doubled in a week.

The reasons are obvious; the rise of the so-called Indian variant of coronavirus and the easing of restrictions in recent weeks have conspired to push things in the wrong direction. There are now places where the new variant is not only prevalent but driving an exponential upward increase in cases even steeper than the previous versions of coronavirus. The virus, more infective than its predecessors, is not going to be constrained by any local lockdowns, even if they were organised better than last week’s farcical efforts.