England’s coronavirus regulations are no more

ON FEBRUARY 20TH Buckingham Palace announced that the queen had tested positive for covid-19. She was legally required to self-isolate for at least five days, lest she pass the virus to others. But when she woke up four days later, on February 24th, that rule was gone. She and the 2m-odd other residents of England infected with covid can now do as they please.

England is one of the first countries to remove its coronavirus regulations in their entirety (the other parts of the United Kingdom have devolved control over health policy and plan to scrap their rules later). After almost two years in which adherence to public-health guidance has been mandated by law, its reversion to mere advice in England marks a significant moment in the tail-end of the pandemic.

Many public-health advisers fear it may have come too soon. They say the number of deaths caused by coronavirus remains too high, and that restrictions should be lifted only once that number has not just come down but also stayed down for some time. Yet announcing the end of restrictions on February 21st, Boris Johnson argued that the trends in deaths and hospitalisations were in the right downward direction, so that the time was right to act.

Timing was always going to be tricky. Yet it is clear that covid in England is no longer the same disease that shut...