LONDON – A different Christmas, empty pubs and restaurants, less-frequent shops and many, many more people at home with COVID or fear of catching it: if on one hand there seems to be less cause for concern about the seriousness of the Omicron version disease, on the other The speed of transmission has evacuated population centers in the UK and forced thousands to spend their holidays in solitary confinement.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2.83% of the population in England is positive for the virus, about 1 or 1.5 million people for every 35 residents. In Wales, one in 45 citizens, or 70,000 people, 45,000 in Northern Ireland, 79,000 in Scotland. The predominance is in London, where one in 10 people have covid. The data were published on 24 December and – as noted – refer to the week from 13 December to 19 December. Today the reality could have changed even more: Estimates speak of 2 million positives on Christmas Day.

On Friday, 122,000 new positives were recorded: yet another record that fulfills a “prediction” made by Chris Whitty, the leading Covid expert in Great Britain, who announced at a press conference on 15 December that “records continue Will break in the next weeks”.

Further measures have been taken in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, such as Simultaneous rule of up to six people, while in England Boris Johnson is hesitant to introduce new measures despite the progress of the pandemic. On the one hand, the prime minister is by nature opposed to “restricting the liberties of citizens”, on the other he is politically weak and, despite the numbers, the sanctions have neither the support of the Council of Ministers nor the conservative community.

In the wake of the Downing Street party scandal, the Tories’ popularity plummeted. The ruling party is behind Labor in the polls (32% versus 40%). If the vote is held today, Labor will win a majority of 26 seats and Johnson will lose his seats in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.,

People protect themselves without announcing other security measures. Like other moments of the pandemic, parks and open spaces are well attended, the rest are not, A kind of informal and voluntary lockdown adopted in the hope of spending the holidays without getting sick,