IN THE animated film, 'Shrek', Lord Farquaad addresses his knights as they’re about to go into battle, and assures them: “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

For some reason, I imagined Boris Johnson coming out with that line this week, surrounded by his motley crew of ministers as he issued the edict that England would abandon Covid regulations such as wearing masks and social distancing.

If not a policy of herd immunity, it seems an incredible gamble by a government already severely criticised for its handling of the Covid crisis; not least the harrowing line that people died who didn’t need to die.

Will people die, particularly the elderly, as a result of this major change of policy, and will people in England now throw caution to the wind and abandon all attempts to be circumspect? Many are doing that already, to be honest.

As one critic on Twitter put it: “July 19th isn’t ‘freedom day’. It’s the day the Government officially abdicates all responsibility and gives up any pretence of trying to manage the pandemic.”

Expect plenty of opprobrium for the Tory government if this gamble goes disastrously wrong.

All this at a time when cases are rising again, and it’s predicted another wave will hit at the end of summer. The difference, of course, this time is that there are far fewer hospitalisations, for which the success of the vaccine programme is given the credit.

We were told at the time the vaccine was approved that it was a game-changer, and people like me believe at some point soon we will have to learn to live with Covid.

But being reckless, the Johnson government may well be saying that some people may have to learn to die with Covid, unnecessarily.

On this occasion, the Northern Ireland Executive isn’t following Westminster’s lead, and there seems to be a general acceptance that restrictions here are still needed as we move slowly forward.

That doesn’t mean, however, that people aren’t getting frustrated with the slow pace of moving forward, and with the particular loss of personal freedoms and the problems lockdown causes, there is a greater need for open government.

As I have said before, the best way to achieve this is a partnership between the authorities and the people.

But the lack of information about the science behind the advice being given in Northern Ireland smacks of arrogance, and people see the problems for society piling up as lockdown continues.

Like many, I have felt particularly sorry for our children and young people, whose education is affected as well as the serious reduction in any outdoor life, with the attendant social and physical damage.

This week, we saw television coverage of some of the summer schemes being organised for children in Northern Ireland, and the squeals of excitement were a joy to listen to as they ran around the playground.

As one teacher said, the focus has been on young people’s mental health and wellbeing as well as socialising and fitness levels.

And the frustration is that campaigners have been pointing out that much of the restriction on young people for such a long time in particular was imposed without evidence of any potential benefit.

It’s been revealed this week that a survey in the Republic found that 80 per cent of young people said their mental health has been negatively impacted by the pandemic – and that more than two-thirds of them have not sought help.

It’s an indication of how deep the problem is, and how much it’s going to come back to cause issues for some time to come.

A part of the breakdown in trust between many people and the decision-makers is the lack of information and, indeed, there are some who feel that many in the media simply churn out the official line without scrutiny.

Even worse, in the case of a BBC interviewer in England, there was a total lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject.

When interviewing Professor Christina Pagel, the presenter challenged her by saying “We don’t have the data” about long covid.

Err, 100 per cent wrong.

“We have lots of data,” replied the shocked professor. “The Office of National Statistics only last Friday showed that one million people in England are living with long covid, 400,000 for more than a year, and 600,000 saying it impacted on their daily lives.”

“Okay, we must leave it there,” said the BBC presenter.

So with the build-up of frustration and the public discourse lacking credibility at times, many people ignore the mountain of facts available, and simply stick with the opinions that suits their particular world view.

Differences of opinion are healthy enough, but one tweet this week showed there are some very strange people about.

“Bumped into a guy I know on the street, and in the space of 30 seconds he went from ‘Hey how are you’ to the vaccine being ‘genocide’, how the mainstream media are covering up thousands of deaths, and the friend of a woman he knows in Romania took the vaccine and died the next day.”

Let’s get some sanity into this whole debate.

Everybody, surely, knows that Covid is real, it’s here, it can cause serious problems, and it can still kill people.

Yes, the vaccine is a real game-changer, and its effects are wonderful, and we are moving slowly but surely out of this pandemic.

But we’re not completely out of it yet, and the Conservative government’s move seems a step too far too quickly.

We need to stay patient, be careful in situations with social distancing, wear our masks (to protect others as much as ourselves) and generally follow guidelines and advice.

Again, I do agree that at some point we will have to learn to live with Covid, even in the knowledge that such a virus will mutate and there will still be new variants.

This is not the flu. But hopefully as we advance, we will be able to live with it in the same way.

In the meantime, stay safe and stay patient.