Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government thinks people should make their own decision about meeting up for Christmas during the coronavirus pandemic, but given the risk some may want to wait for Easter to gather with their family, a British minister said on Wednesday.
After imposing the most onerous restrictions in British peacetime history, Johnson is keen to avoid becoming the prime minister who cancelled Christmas, even though the United Kingdom has the sixth worst official COVID-19 death toll in the world.
The government came under pressure on Tuesday to revise its plan to relax COVID-19 restrictions for five days around Christmas, with two influential medical journals making a rare joint appeal for the policy to be scrapped.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said it was for people to make up their own minds but suggested that for some Easter (in April 2021) could be the new Christmas – especially those who were in high risk groups.
“How much do they want to bring members of their broader family together at Christmas or whether they think on this occasion lets just keep it small and we can meet up in the Spring – Easter can be the new Christmas for some people,” he told Sky.
“It’s not for government to tell people exactly how to handle this situation,” he told the BBC.
Some families have said they will meet up no matter what the government decrees.
COVID-19 has battered the United Kingdom: The government’s most conservative death toll measure is 64,908, second only to Italy in Europe, while government borrowing is set to hit a peacetime high of 394 billion pounds ($531 billion) in 2020/21.
