Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that people should plan only for a “merry little Christmas” and exercise extreme caution but he refused to outlaw festive family gatherings as Covid-19 cases soared across Britain.

After imposing the most onerous restrictions in Britain’s peacetime history, Johnson is now keen to avoid becoming the first leader since Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century to cancel Christmas, even though the UK has the sixth worst official Covid-19 death toll in the world.

Hours after pubs and restaurants were forced to close again in London and some other areas to tackle a worsening outbreak, Johnson said plans to ease restrictions for five days from December 23 would go ahead but urged people to be careful.

“It would not be right, we think, to criminalise people who have made plans and simply want to spend time with their loved ones,” Johnson told reporters at a Downing Street briefing, adding that a smaller Christmas would be a safer Christmas.

“Have yourselves a merry little Christmas,” Johnson said, using the title of the popular jingle sung by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St Louis, and later recorded by stars such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Michael Buble.

Johnson’s plans to relax restrictions for five days so three households can mix have been criticised by two influential medical journals.

Medical views are mixed on whether or not Christmas should be cancelled. There is also growing concern among, for example, oncologists that many cancers are going undiagnosed due to the public health focus on Covid-19.

Covid-19 has battered the UK: The government’s most conservative death toll measure is 64,908, second only to Italy in Europe, while government borrowing is set to hit a peacetime high of 394 billion pounds ($531 billion) in 2020/21.

One cabinet minister suggested people should make up their own minds about what precautions to take, and said some may want to wait for Easter to gather with their family, given the risk to the elderly and other vulnerable groups.

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick said it was not for government to tell people exactly how to behave. “Easter can be the new Christmas for some people,” he said.

The leaders of Scotland and Wales, which set their own often-stricter rules, urged people to show restraint. Wales also toughened general restrictions further. The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has raised hopes that some semblance of normal life could return in 2021, though some families say they will meet up for Christmas.