Subjecting the young to yet more Covid restrictions is stark staring mad

Here’s a wild idea: perhaps the young are getting back to normal, but being careful about seeing their grandparents? Or if they’re not, surely the message for these “potent spreaders” should not be, as Matt Hancock’s was this week, “Don’t kill your gran by catching coronavirus.” But rather, “You might have coronavirus, don’t hug your gran.”

It is sad, granted, that those most vulnerable to Covid-19 are safest if they don’t interact with their loved ones. But it is also sad – and unnecessary – that my younger siblings will never have a proper university experience like I did. Or that healthy people in the prime of their lives are losing their jobs and entire industries are on their knees.

Yes, a small proportion of the population are still at risk, but our Government’s solution – to subject the whole of society to a set of rules that are strangling the lives and livelihoods of the masses – is stark raving mad. There’s even a case – given that a car accident is more likely to kill you if you’re under 40 than coronavirus – for allowing the virus to circulate among this demographic, in the interests of herd immunity. Just look at Sweden, which refused to lock down, had half the number of deaths per capita than us, and a recession less than half as severe as our own.

As if it hasn’t been bad enough for children and young adults this year, these are very generations that will be paying off our lockdown-induced debts for years to come. Forget “Freshers Flu”, Britain’s next breed of students will be nursing an economic hangover the likes of which has not been seen since the last World War. And all over an enemy, let’s not forget, that at least 99.9 per cent of the population has survived.