It's going to depend very much on how badly omicron impacts on the NHS. The only reason the UK ever locked down was to protect the NHS.
I can't help but conclude that Bojo's sudden concern about Omicron is more about improving his headlines than anything else. Not that a wave isn't coming, but we knew that weeks ago (when the Conservatives still led the polls) and it wasn't panic stations then.
Johnson will resist lockdown as long as he can. He doesn't have the moral authority to do it, nor does he have the votes in his own party to do it. He'll have to rely on opposition votes (as he did this week for his plan B measures) and that makes him look like a weak leader (which he is). It would be politically very damaging for him.
That said, if the newspapers have photos of an overwhelmed NHS on their covers and people are dying without hospital treatment, then he will have to lock down. He won't have a choice.
So we have to hope that the reports coming out of SA, that Omicron is a milder variant resulting in fewer hospitalisations, even if it's more transmissable, are accurate. And that it will replace Delta as the dominant strain.
And then we have to start voting for people who will ensure that our health service is properly funded and not systematically hollowed out and run to the brink of collapse each winter even when there isn't a global pandemic to add pressure.
I now think it's quite unlikely we will lock down again, but we'll see.
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And they told me there'd be people there, whose love could make me whole. But I walked among them yesterday, and never saw a soul.