Just what is the logic behind lockdowns?
IT would take a heart of stone not to have felt some compassion for Boris Johnson yesterday, as he put the finishing touches to his conference speech.
This was to have been his moment of triumph, the day he accepted the rapturous acclaim of his grateful party.
Not only had he secured a Brexit deal against the odds, he had also vanquished the Marxist hordes at the ballot box and won a landslide majority – including northern seats which had been Labour for 100 years and more.
Like the Caesars of his university studies, he should have been marching the Appian Way in garlanded glory.
Instead, he is mired in a Covid crisis which deepens by the day and his speech will be delivered into an eerie virtual vacuum. Mr Johnson is by nature a crowd-pleaser. Having no crowd to please will be a bitter disappointment.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak did his best to offer some cheer in his own speech, heaping praise on his boss and saying that despite his uniquely onerous burden, he was getting all the big decisions right. Sadly, not everyone agrees. The test and trace shambles, already a huge embarrassment, turned even more toxic with the news that 16,000 people who tested Covid-positive last week went unreported because of a ‘computer glitch’.
Furthermore, all those who had been in contact with them weren’t warned to selfisolate, so have been unwittingly spreading the virus in their wake.
The consequence for some northern towns and cities has been devastating. Their genuine infection rates are much higher than previously thought and they now face even tougher lockdowns.
In Manchester the rate shot up from under 300 cases per 100,000 to over 500 at a stroke. In Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham and Sheffield it was a similar story, to the rage of northern MPs and local politicians.
Understandably they demand to know how, after four months and a £12billion outlay, the system is still in such disarray.
And why is something as rudimentary as an excel spreadsheet being used to collate the figures? Surely those billions could have bought something a little more sophisticated.
None of this is directly Mr Johnson’s fault. He is not a computer expert and has been badly let down by Public Health england and the Department of Health. But he is in charge of the clattering train and it is for him to get it back under control.
There are 17million people in lockdown, yet more than a quarter of the population don’t know exactly why, for how long, or whether it will have any effect.
Why are some areas with infection rates of 50 or 60 per 100,000 in lockdown, when others with five or six times that number are still not?
And why impose quarantine on air passengers coming in from Italy, where the rate is under 30? Mancunians flying in from Lake Como after a couple of weeks’ holiday are much less likely to be infected than if they’d stayed at home.
We are at a highly dangerous tipping point. Lockdown just isn’t working in many areas, either because people don’t understand what they are supposed to do, or have become inured to the risks.
To win back their confidence, Boris must show the leadership qualities this paper knows he possesses.
He must live up to his promise to ‘level with the public’ by bringing infinitely more transparency to Government decisionmaking. The great communicator must start communicating.
Lockdowns are costing thousands of jobs. They should not be imposed without clear and compelling scientific evidence that they work. Operating on a wing and a prayer simply won’t do.