Ministers are coming under growing scientific and political pressure to take action over a feared “surge” in coronavirus cases connected to Christmas, as Downing Street rejected calls for any measures to mitigate the impact.
MPs, scientists and doctors have called for a rethink of the policy allowing three households to mix indoors over Christmas, or for schools to take longer breaks over the festive period to curb the spread of Covid, but No 10 said there were no plans for either.
But with cases in London rising sharply, and infection rates remaining high in many other places, Venki Ramakrishnan, the Nobel prize-winning biologist and recently-departed head of the Royal Society scientific body, warned of the expected consequences.
Quick guide Covid at Christmas: how do rules vary across Europe?
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France reopened non-essential shops this month, allowing Christmas shopping to begin. But an uptick in new infections since then means that while travel is permitted from 15 December, a nationwide 8pm to 7am curfew will begin then that will be lifted for 24 December, but not Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve. Bars and restaurants will not reopen until January and private gatherings are limited to six adults.
Germany extended its “lockdown lite” until early January, but amid a record surge in infections and deaths may have to shut down further before Christmas – possibly allowing people to leave home only for essential reasons and closing shops from 21 December. Private meetings are currently limited to five, a limit that should be raised to 10 from between 23 December and 1 January, but this may change.
Austria’s strict lockdown ends this month. The country is carrying out a mass programme of 10 million tests over the next fortnight with the aim of allowing more families to reunite over the festive period. Christmas markets have been cancelled.
Italy has banned inter-regional travel from 20 December to 6 January except for work, health or emergency reasons, and Italians may not leave their towns on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day. Midnight mass on 24 December will be brought forward so worshippers can get home before the country’s 10pm-5am curfew, and people arriving from EU countries must present a negative test.
Spain has appealed for people to be responsible but will allow movement between regions “for family reasons” between 23 December and 6 January. Regional curfews, which range from 10pm to midnight, will be pushed back to 1.30am on 24 and 31 December, when the limit for gatherings will be raised from six to 10, a measure that will also apply on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Authorities in the Netherlands have said current restrictions will not be relaxed for Christmas and may yet be strengthened if infections rise. Guests for Christmas dinner will be limited to three (excluding under-13s); cafes, bars and restaurants will remain shut except for takeaways; non-essential shops must close at 8pm and all non-essential travel is discouraged.
Belgium has said households may be in close contact with just one extra person over the Christmas period, although people living on their own will be allowed to meet two others. Fireworks are to be banned on New Year’s Eve to limit gatherings.
Poland will allow people to spend Christmas only with their immediate family, with no more than five guests to be invited to each household until at least 27 December and travel banned outside people’s home towns.
John Henley Europe correspondent
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“I understand the emotional need families have, but from a public health point of view the relaxation of rules for Christmas are simply a recipe for another surge of the virus,” he told the Guardian.
“At a time when vaccines look very promising, I think that it is not too much to ask people to exercise restraint this Christmas. I myself have not seen my children or grandchildren for over a year because they live in the US, and do not expect to until we are vaccinated or infection rates are very low.”
Ramakrishnan stressed he did not seek “to be prescriptive about it myself” over the rules, adding: “That is for the government. I think if restrictions are relaxed as planned, and people take advantage of relaxed rules, it will lead to another surge at a particularly bad time.”
While household mixing plans for up to five days over Christmas are UK-wide (or seven days for Northern Ireland), the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said this could change in Wales.
Asked at a Monday press conference if Wales could reconsider the four-nations approach to Christmas, Gething said: “You can never say never … Nothing is off the table. It depends on the choices each of us is prepared to make.”
Downing Street said there were no plans to review the Christmas guidance or keep schools closed for longer.
Labour called on Monday for the government to set out how they planned to avoid the NHS coming under over-intense pressure in January.
“Overall increasing areas are rising faster than decreasing areas are falling,” Jonathan Ashworh, the shadow health secretary, told Matt Hancock, the health secretary, in Commons exchanges about the decision to move London and some neighbouring areas into the top level of coronavirus restrictions.
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“As things stand we are heading into the Christmas easing with diminishing headroom. The buffer zone these tiers was supposed to provide is getting much thinner.”
Sam Everington, a GP in Tower Hamlets, in east London, who chairs a health commissioning body for the capital, said schools were a particular worry in terms of the virus being spread among students and then passed to older relatives in a household.
“We need to think very seriously about Christmas and new year,” he told the BBC. “Everyone needs to think seriously about the risk that poses with more than one household.”
UK coronavirus cases
Boris Johnson also faces dissent from his own Conservative backbenches, with the Tory former defence minister Tobias Ellwood asking the health secretary, Matt Hancock, in the Commons to review the Christmas plan, “so we don’t begin the new year with a third wave.”
Ellwood said: “2020 has been the most testing of years, 2021 should be different because of that vaccine. My concern is letting down our guard for five days during Christmas could be very dangerous indeed.
Stephen Hammond, the Conservative MP for Wimbledon in south-west London, called separately for urgent action on transmission in schools.
“I’ve been of the view for at least a week now, looking at my local area, that schools should have been closed last Friday,” he told BBC Radio 4. “With only three days left till the end of term we should make that decision today.
“I also think we should think very carefully about how quickly they should open after Christmas, and potentially, about two weeks of online learning.”
Hammond, however, did not argue for a change to the Christmas rules, saying this should be “a personal decision”.
He said: “I think a lot of people will probably now decide that, actually, they don’t want to take that risk. So I think a lot of people will take that decision for themselves, and I think that’s probably the right way.”
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