We are ONE METRE from saving millions of jobs – and a generation of children

WHILe Labour and the teaching unions celebrate their triumph in sabotaging plans to reopen schools and agitated crowds obsess over statues of half-forgotten men who died centuries ago, this country is sleepwalking towards a precipice.

Lulled into a trance of complacency by furlough and the warm summer sun, the British public seems to be in blissful denial of the grim reckoning coming ever closer down the track.

Yesterday, the Organisation for economic Cooperation and Development gave a dark foretaste of the catastrophe ahead.

Along with France, it predicts that the UK will experience the worst national income fall in the developed world. Unemployment could double or even treble, as our economy shrinks by 11.5 per cent — a scale of collapse unheard of in modern times.

Tax receipts would be decimated, welfare payments rocket and the whole country be forced to incur ever more towering debt — and crippling interest repayments — just to pay the bills.

Scary as they are, these numbers don’t begin to describe the full human cost of deep recession and mass unemployment, inflation and negative equity, ballooning personal debt and interest rate rises to shore up a crumbling pound.

And forget any hope of a rapid ‘V- shaped’ recovery, the OeCD says. That’s a deluded fantasy.

It’s true of course that this lofty international think-tank’s auguries of doom are frequently proved wrong. Its dire predictions that Brexit would unleash economic Armageddon turned out to be absurdly overblown.

However, even if its forecasts are halfright, the outlook is bleak.

Business leaders, too, have warned of a jobs apocalypse unless urgent and radical action is taken.

Aviation and travel companies are already laying off thousands of workers and when furlough ends the stream of redundancies will become a flood — especially if the Government goes ahead with its misguided plan to quarantine all incoming passengers for 14 days.

Leisure and most retail sectors are in similar straits. In the Mail earlier this week, Young’s Brewery boss Patrick Dardis said 3.5 million jobs are under threat in the hospitality industry if pubs, hotels and restaurants are not allowed to resume operations before the summer ends.

It’s understandable that the Government’s top priority up to now has been to drive down infection rates and protect the NHS. Apart from the care home tragedy and a few other early blind spots — they have done a largely praiseworthy job.

The risk of catching the virus is tumbling by the day and, for all but the most vulnerable groups, the risk of dying is no higher than from seasonal flu. For children it is less than the chance of being struck by lightning. For anyone under 40, it’s barely greater. So it’s now time to set out a proper national recovery plan. Not just ad hoc announcements about garden centres and safari parks, but a clearly articulated, coherent strategy to pull Britain out of its torpor and get us back on the move.

And the starting point for that strategy must be a reduction in the social distancing limit from two metres to one. The increased risk from such a change would be minimal — increasing the probability of being infected from 1.3 per cent to 2.6, according to a recent Canadian study.

As one leading academic put it yesterday: ‘ You’re moving from a tiny risk at two metres to a very small one at one metre.’

The World Health Organisation believes one metre is an acceptable minimum and it’s already been adopted in many countries, including France, Denmark and Singapore, without any notable rise in transmission.

Germany, Italy and Australia have compromised at 1.5 metres.

True, members of the Government’s Sage scientific advisory committee oppose the reduction, but they are not seeing the bigger picture. The increased health risk of a one-metre distance pales into insignificance against the health risk — mental and physical — of a deep and lasting recession.

Making the change could be the difference between survival and bankruptcy to many thousands of businesses. Mr Dardis believes that with a one-metre limit, 70 per cent of pubs and restaurants could remain viable. At two metres that drops to a third.

Schools, too, would find it much easier to reopen fully — and unions harder to dig in their heels.

Two more reports yesterday highlighted the lasting damage to children’s education, social development and mental health of missing half a school year. And inevitably the poorest and most deprived suffer most.

To protect these children — and so their parents can resume working — all schools must return to some kind of normality in September. There are three months to plan. With one- metre distancing that should be easily enough.

This is not the only change required to get Britain on the move. Infection rates must continue to fall and the public must be instilled with confidence that everything possible is being done to keep us all safe.

But it is the key to economic renewal. Boris Johnson said yesterday that the two-metre limit is ‘under constant review’. He must find the courage to reduce it — and soon.

Yes, he should take account of what the boffins tell him, but ultimately this is a political call.

Before making it, the Prime Minister must ask himself this question: Is a marginal increase in Covid risk a price worth paying to save the life chances of a generation of children and preserve millions of jobs.

There’s surely only one answer.