On 16 December the hashtag “Plague Island” began trending on Twitter as fast as Omicron cases were rising and cancellations were pouring in across the UK.
Labelled a “Remainer Hashtag” by the conservative news site Guido Fawkes, it’s the term that has come to be used by “very online” opponents of this government to characterise Britain in the time of Covid-19 – riddled with disease, and with a pandemic response inferior to that of its European neighbours.
The UK government’s approach to managing coronavirus has long been looser than many of its global equivalents. By October this year, the country had the highest case rate in western Europe and among the most infections across the world. Around this time, it was dubbed “the Covid capital of Europe” by the London freesheet City AM.
The UK’s Covid-19 death rate so far doesn’t compare favourably with many western European countries either (it is lower than Belgium and Italy, but higher than Spain, France and Germany).
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