On Wednesday, Boris Johnson’s government announced that plan B measures for England, which were put in place in December, will be scrapped. This includes mandates on face coverings, which will no longer be compulsory in indoor public spaces from 27 January or for secondary school classrooms from 20 January. The Department for Education is likely to remove guidance on their use in school communal areas in the coming days.

This is in stark contrast to what other countries are doing in the midst of the Omicron pandemic – and let’s not forget, this is still a pandemic. With daily Covid-19 case numbers in the UK still above 100,000, and more than 400 deaths a day, our situation is among the worst in the world. Though our case numbers are indeed falling, this may well be partly due to the measures imposed in plan B, such as wearing face masks and working from home. There is a risk that the removal of these measures could reverse this trend.

Scotland is mitigating against this risk by maintaining the face mask mandate when it removes most restrictions from Monday. The US, meanwhile, is an example of a country enacting more stringent measures in order to bring the pandemic under control. Next week, the Biden administration will make 400m N95 (FFP2) masks available for free in the largest deployment of PPE in US history.

We know that, when they fit well, these high-efficiency masks do an excellent job of protecting wearers and preventing the spread of infection. In fact, on 17 January, the UK Health Security Agency changed its guidance for healthcare workers so that FFP3 respirators (EU-certified masks) must be worn by staff when “caring for patients with a suspected or confirmed infection spread by the airborne route”. This is long overdue.

And yet when it comes the public, the government seems much happier to throw caution to the wind. For people in England, the use of face coverings – of any sort – is no longer required. This does not mean that the risk of transmitting Covid-19 or being infected by it has reduced. Omicron continues to be the most infectious variant of Covid-19.

hile the mask mandate may have gone, and some people will joyously doff their masks, many will remain rightly concerned about Covid-19, the potential for getting long Covid and the effect that the lack of restrictions will have on the lives of vulnerable people. People will also be keen to avoid time off work isolating with Covid and recovering from the illness. 

(Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/20/covid-england-mask-boris-johnson-omicron)

In the excerpt “People will also be keen to avoid time off work isolating with Covid and recovering from the illness”, the word in bold means