Across the world central governments face local covid-19 revolts

SPEAKING IN PARLIAMENT on October 12th, Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, grappled with a problem facing countries across the world: how to contain a resurgence of the coronavirus, without imposing a national lockdown. Like other governments, his has responded so far with a patchwork of varying local rules for England (which differ somewhat from those set by the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). So he said the government was “simplifying, standardising” them, into a three-tier hierarchy of restrictions. In areas with a “very high alert level”, pubs will be shut and indoor social mixing will be banned. The government will “work with local government leaders on the additional measures which should be taken”. That may not be easy. In England, as elsewhere, management of the pandemic has frayed relations between central and lower levels of government almost to breaking-point.