Rebecca McQuillan: Are you a fury or a stoic? How Omicron is opening another social rift

Thanks to Omicron, we’re all having to be more careful while shopping, working and socialising. Suddenly the idea of hanging up the mistletoe above the Downing Street stairs seems freighted with renewed risk, and not just because Stanley Johnson might be nearby.

In England, mask-wearing isfoo back, something that was already required in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the First Minister has called on employers to maximise home-working.

These measures will remain in place for at least three weeks, while scientists establish how transmissible, severe and vaccine-evasive the new variant is.

Then there will either be glad tidings of great joy, because it’s weaker than feared, or wailing and rending of Christmas jumpers as we learn it needs tougher measures to be kept at bay.

Whatever happens, health ministers want us to wear masks, maintain hygiene and test ourselves before social events this Christmas season.

So pity the poor blighters that Downing Street seems intent on sabotaging them.

We now know that last year, at a time when people in London were not allowed to gather indoors, two parties were held at Downing Street, the earlier of which (a “packed” event) was apparently attended by the Prime Minister himself. “Dozens of people” were at the later event on December 18th, where food and drink were laid on and revellers stayed until after midnight. Apparently they even played party games (pass the pathogen, was it?)

The Prime Minister has refused to deny the parties took place, but claims laughably that “no rules were broken”. Quite understandably, Keir Starmer accuses him of taking people for fools.

But I’m not sure he is taking folk for fools. Johnson’s line is more like a wink to his base: hey guys, gotta pretend to be going along with this stuff, NHS capacity blah blah, but you know me, I’m not going to let any virus stand between me and my Christmas fun – you with me?

I doubt there’s a soul in the country who believes Boris Johnson genuinely cares about this stuff. He goes through the motions in public and does what he likes in private.

But every time he or one of his ministers is exposed for hypocrisy, it causes real and lasting harm, because it further discredits the government, undermines compliance with Covid control measures and fuels the small but implacable lobby who oppose restrictions on principle.

Broadly speaking the population seems to fall into two camps when it comes to Covid, the furies and the stoics.

The furies – you find them dotted, unmasked, around the Tory backbenches and venting their spleen on social media – are vexed by the slightest hint of new restrictions. They seem outraged by the very idea that the virus has had the temerity to mutate.

Sir Desmond Swayne MP is typical of the breed in claiming that he is standing up for liberty against a piece of elasticated cloth. On Talk Radio this week, it was the usual stuff: having to wear masks was like “living in a dystopian world”, designed to “heighten anxiety”, Omicron precautions “utter hysteria”. He even claimed – erroneously – that Scotland’s infection rate had been “significantly higher than in England throughout” in spite of the ongoing mask-wearing mandate here.

The Office of National Statistics Coronavirus Infection Survey, which compares the four UK nations, clearly contradicts that statement: since mask wearing stopped being mandatory in England in July, infections in Scotland have generally been below that in England (on 13 of 18 data points) spiking above it only when schools went back (primary school children, of course, do not wear masks).

But then Sir Desmond doesn’t seem to mind misleading people: this is the man who was roundly criticised by his colleagues Priti Patel and Michael Gove in January for claiming in a speech to an anti-lockdown group that Covid statistics “appeared to have been manipulated” and that the risks posed by Covid to the NHS were “manageable”. Angela Rayner condemned him and Ms Patel called his comments “thoroughly wrong”, but in spite of being urged to retract them, he refused.

The furies condemn restrictions like social distancing and mask-wearing on the grounds that they are not perfect as virus control measures, but are silent about the numerous studies showing the measures help prevent the virus spreading. While demanding perfect certainty from science, they jump to conclusions based on hearsay, dismissing concerns about the new variant due to early suggestions it causes mild illness, but ignoring the fact that the evidence is so far fragmentary and unreliable. (The newest reports suggest Omicron is now driving a sharp spike in infections).

The furies give disproportionate weight to a confected notion of totalitarian threat. To take Sir Des again, he told American anti-vaxxer Del Bigtree that aspects of restrictions were about “social control”. How making people wear masks in Tesco benefits our supposed puppet-masters, remains unexplained.

Misinformation is typically defended by the furies on the grounds that anyone who challenges them is trying to undermine their right to free speech. It’s all so very tedious.

At the heart of the rift between furies and stoics is a value divergence: furies value personal freedom, while stoics place a greater premium on collective responsibility.

Stoics recognise the wisdom of taking proportionate measures to stymie the spread of Covid. They remember how tardy governments were in bringing in restrictions last spring, and how that allowed the virus to seed itself numerous times, leading to a horrifying spike in deaths. They understand that scientists can’t give reassurance about Omicron until they have solid evidence, and that two weeks is no time to wait for it. The stoics sigh at the thought this microscopic shapeshifter is still stalking among us, testing us for weaknesses; they are bored and fed up of the restrictions; some of them worry for their businesses and privately express their frustrations.

But they get that you can’t let a potentially more virulent or vaccine-resistant new variant run rife because that would total the NHS and then we really would be facing catastrophe. Another lockdown would be guaranteed.

They recognise that while it’s annoying and restrictions are a drag, doing nothing would be much worse. Above all, they recognise that wearing a mask could save someone, somewhere down the line, from an untimely death.

Another term for these people would be “grown-ups”.

Idling through Twitter, which is awash with full-blown furies comporting themselves as freedom fighters, I unearthed a reflective exchange.

It made me smile. It was like stumbling across a knitting circle in the middle of a pub brawl. One person mildly remarked that it was odd how lockdown sceptics were also mask and social distancing sceptics, since those two measures actually helped prevent lockdowns.

“I suspect,” answered someone else, “that at least some of them might just be very selfish.”

It’s hardly any wonder people see them that way, now, is it?

This latest chapter of the pandemic is a drag, especially just before Christmas. Parties in Downing Street only fuel discontent. But what we need is stoicism. This pandemic won’t be carried off on a wave of fury.

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