Back into lockdown

England enters four- week shutdown as cases surge

LONDON: England has been plunged into a second lockdown, with Christmas celebrations under threat as the spread of the virus breaches worst- case scenarios.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson reluctantly moved England into tough restrictions, following the lead of France and Germany, and even Wales and Northern Ireland, which had all gone into lockdown.

Scotland, which already had tough restrictions, was monitoring its response in the wake of Mr Johnson’s announcement on Sunday morning Australian time.

From Thursday in England, pubs, restaurants, gyms and non- essential shops will close until December 2.

The decision was an embarrassing U- turn for Mr Johnson, who had refused to put England into a two- week lockdown earlier this month to coincide with half- term school holidays.

Now he has been forced into a four- week shutdown, which will include an extension to the nation’s furlough scheme, that pays 80 per cent of workers’ wages.

Mr Johnson was unrepentant about his delay, saying that the situation had changed.

“We’ve had to listen to all kinds of scientific advice, some of which tends in very much a different direction from some of the sage ( scientific) advice that you’ve seen,” he said. “But we also have to balance that scientific advice with the consequences for people’s lives, for people’s mental health, people’s livelihoods that comes from lockdown measures.”

However, he conceded that “Christmas will be different this year” and warned it would be a “moral disaster” if the country did nothing, which would force doctors to choose who “lived or died”.

Mr Johnson promised rapid improvements in testing, which has been woeful in the UK, saying that soon whole cities would be able to be screened with fast turnaround result times.

Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer seized on the U- turn, saying Mr Johnson should come clean now and admit that Christmas was effectively cancelled.

Schools, universities and the construction sector will stay open, but the hotel industry will be decimated with overnight stays banned except for work reasons.

There were predictions of as many as 4000 deaths a day and 85,000 fatalities over the UK winter without new restrictions.

The peak may even have hit on Christmas Eve, with hospitals overwhelmed and other non- COVID- 19 treatments forced to be cut.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty dismissed rear- view mirror experts, saying that “the idea that there is some perfect time to act is a complete misapprehension”.