The UK government is facing renewed criticism of its “stop-start” approach to COVID-19 restrictions, as the country’s health secretary refused to rule out adopting further measures before Christmas. Senior Conservative MP and former minister Tobias Ellwood said on Dec. 19 that the government’s “off the bus, on the bus” approach to tackling COVID-19 has done damage to the economy and burdened the National Health Service (NHS). “That approach needs to stop because it’s damaging our economy, wearing people out, and our NHS isn’t able to cope,” Ellwood told Times Radio. He said there was “plenty of scope” for another variant to turn up “possibly during the summer.” “We need to be planning for that now. Instead, it’s a stop-start. It’s this, you know, locking down and killing the economy, then trying to revive it again. You can’t continue to keep moving in that way. So what we need to do …