COVID Christmas: What restrictions to expect this holiday season?

As holiday celebrations are just a few weeks away, Britons are preparing large gatherings with family and loved ones after almost two years of life with COVID. But with the rise in cases of the worrying super-mutated Omicron strain of the coronavirus, is it too early to go back to the way we use to celebrate the holidays?

What are the newest measures set in place

Though nothing has been set in stone yet, health officials have been urging the public to avoid social gatherings as much as possible. As Christmas and other holiday celebrations tend to see a rise in physical contact between large amounts of people, harsh restrictions could be put into place to halt the spread of the virus.

As it stands currently, these are the measures recently reinstated in the UK:

• Mandatory face coverings in shops and public transport in England.
• Mandatory face coverings for pupils in secondary schools in England.
• Self-isolation for 10 days if in contact with Omicron cases regardless of vaccination status.
• PCR test upon entering the UK for all travellers with compulsory self-isolation until a negative test result is obtained.

More restrictions could be added

England has yet to impose working from home as is the case in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but this might soon change as COVID cases continue to rise. When it comes to booster jabs, they have not yet become mandatory as we've seen in other parts of the world, but so far they are considered as the most effective ammunition against the virus and h

Dr Jenny Harries, The head of the UK’s Health Security Agency, explained that to avoid further harsh measures to be implemented, we must avoid unnecessary social gatherings and prioritize getting jabbed:

Vaccines appear to be effective, but we find that the variant is more highly transmissible, having lowish grade infection, but in very large numbers of the population, [it] could still be a significant impact on our hospitals.

And added:

And, of course, our behaviours in winter and particularly around Christmas, we tend to socialise more, so I think all of those will need to be taken into account.