UK braces for coronavirus shutdown

Johnson mulls more stringent measures

LONDON: The United Kingdom was bracing yesterday for the virtual shutdown of London as underground train stations across the capital closed and Prime Minister Boris Johnson mulled tougher measures to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

As the coronavirus outbreak sweeps across the world, governments, companies and investors are grappling with the biggest public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic, panicked populations and financial markets.

After ordering the closure of schools across a country that casts itself as a pillar of Western stability, Johnson on Wednesday said the government was ruling nothing out when asked whether he would bring in measures to lock down London.

Johnson has asked the government to come up with plans for a so-called lockdown which would see businesses closed, transport services reduced, gatherings limited and more stringent controls imposed on the population of one of Europe’s richest city.

Pressed at a news conference

imploding whether tougher measures were needed to shut down London where bars, public transport and businesses remain busy, Johnson said: “We’ve always said we’re going to do the right measures at the right time.”

As London prepared for a shutdown, 20,000 British military service personnel were put on standby to help tackle the coronavirus outbreak and Queen Elizabeth was due to leave the capital for her ancient castle at Windsor.

The monarch has also agreed to postpone a planned state visit by Japanese Emperor Naruhito in June.

London’s transport authority said it would close up to 40 underground train stations until further notice and cut down other services, including buses and trains, and the whole of the Waterloo and City line.

“People should not be travelling, by any means, unless they really, really have to,” London mayor Sadiq Khan said.

Britain has so far reported 104 deaths from coronavirus and 2,626 confirmed cases, but UK scientific advisers say more than 50,000 people might have already been infected.

Britain faces a “massive shortage” of ventilators that will be needed to treat critically ill patients suffering from coronavirus, after it failed to invest enough in intensive care equipment, a leading ventilator manufacturer said.

Shoppers were queuing around the block early yesterday to buy basic goods such as bottled water and canned goods.

Reuters reporters saw more than 100 people queuing in the rain before the 7am opening of a large Sainsbury’s store in Clapham Common while queues snaked around another Sainsbury’s store a few miles away in Vauxhall.

Johnson has joined the country’s biggest supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons in urging shoppers not to stockpile, but the pleas have fallen on deaf ears. – Reuters