SHATTERING PRICE OF LOCKDOWN
Huge impact on health & economy of draconian curbs revealed... as EU vaccine block threatens to hit Britain’s rollout for MONTHS
THE appalling cost of a year of draconian Covid restrictions and lockdowns is laid bare today.
On the eve of the anniversary of Boris Johnson’s original ‘stay at home’ order, in-depth analysis by the Mail shows the sheer extent of the economic, social, educational and healthcare damage.
Pandemic measures are costing £500million a day in lost output, while adding £1billion a day to the national debt. And a feared EU blockade
on vaccines could derail the phased plan to end the lockdown.
Brussels commissioner Mairead McGuinness yesterday confirmed such a ban would be ‘ on the table’ at an EU summit on Thursday. Experts say a total embargo could set back the UK vaccination programme by two months.
As MPs, business leaders and campaigners last night urged Mr Johnson to rule out using lockdowns in any future health crisis:
⯀ A record 844,285 Covid jabs were administered on Saturday;
⯀ Defence Secretary Ben Wallace claimed a vaccine export ban would damage the EU’s international reputation;
⯀ Amid signs of a third wave of the virus in Europe, he warned it was premature to book foreign holidays;
⯀ The NHS announced trials of tests to detect dangerous mutations of the virus;
⯀ A government scientist said social distancing should stay until everyone had been vaccinated;
⯀ More than half of Germans and almost two thirds of the French say they will not take the AstraZeneca jab amid scare stories about its efficiency;
⯀ The daily coronavirus death toll rose by 33 yesterday, taking the weekly average down by more than third.
Today’s lockdown audit illustrates the crippling impact that 12 months of curbs have had on swathes of the economy, with pubs and restaurants losing an estimated £1.7billion a week, and some 15,000 shops expected to never reopen.
The grim Covid death toll, which yesterday hit 126,155, is well known. But today’s analysis also reveals the dire impact of the past year on the nation’s health. The NHS waiting list has soared to a record high of nearly 4.6million, with 300,000 waiting more than a year for treatment.
On cancer, 44,000 fewer patients started treatment last year and there were 4.4million fewer life-saving diagnostic tests. An extra 6,000 people died of heart disease and stroke. Mental health services saw a 27,000 rise in individuals seeking support, while child eating disorders doubled.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the current, and third, lockdown had to be the last.
‘We must plan and make changes now to avoid this ever happening again,’ he said. ‘The cost has been far too high.
‘The damage to the economy has been, and continues to be, enormous. But there have also been huge consequences for people’s health and mental health. We cannot allow ourselves to get caught out like this again.’
A fellow Conservative, Sir Charles Walker, said ministers should have adopted a different approach to shielding the vulnerable.
Sir Charles, vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee for backbench Tories, said: ‘We cannot afford to let it happen again – the first lockdown should have been the last. We have had a situation where people have not wanted to ask the question about the wider impact because they know they would not like the answer. But whether you look at the economy, mental health or education, the damage has been massive and unsustainable.’
Former Cabinet minister Esther McVey also urged the PM to accelerate the exit from lockdown to limit further damage.
Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: ‘It is crucial that this lockdown is the last one.
‘Businesses cannot afford to keep going through a process of opening and then closing after only a few weeks or months.
‘The full impact of this lockdown will not be known until the summer, but we can be sure that many will have lost their jobs, which is why the Prime Minister must consign lockdowns to history.’
Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, said: ‘ Our children have borne the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic. They have made so many sacrifices – adapting to home-learning, missing friends and relatives, not being able to do so many of the things children love to do. Their lives have been disrupted and many have struggled.’
Government sources pointed out that the Prime Minister had designed a ‘cautious’ route out of lockdown in the hope it would be ‘irreversible’.
Mr Wallace said yesterday: ‘None of us want to have lots of draconian measures but this is an unprecedented global pandemic which has cost tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of lives around the world.’
‘Avoid this ever happening again’
TOMORROW marks the anniversary of the most draconian restrictions imposed on our freedoms in modern times. Today, the Mail counts the devastating cost of Covid lockdown.
The collateral damage to national health has been immense. A staggering 79 million fewer in-person GP appointments. Hospital waiting lists soaring to nearly 4.6 million.
Urgent cancer tests down by 400,000, 44,000 fewer starting therapy. Some 6,000 unnecessary heart disease deaths, a mental health epidemic, eating disorders doubled, dementia tests slashed… the list goes on.
So many thousands of people are suffering and dying that the casualty list of lockdown may well end up being far worse than from the virus itself. And this doesn’t include the baleful effects on general happiness and well-being.
Loved ones dying alone because of visiting bans, isolation from friends and family, no congregation for weddings, the feeling of being held under house arrest by the state.
Then there is the ruinous economic cost. Unemployment up by 700,000 and rising. One in four businesses closed and many more on the brink.
Prominent chain stores boarded up – some for ever. High streets decimated. The travel and hospitality industries hollowed out. National debt well above the £2trillion mark. Public borrowing at £1billion a day. Output down by £500million a day.
Compared with this monumental car crash, the 2008 financial meltdown was little more than a scraped wing-mirror. So what then must be done? At the start of the crisis, Boris Johnson had little choice but to prop up the economy by launching this massive Keynesian experiment.
But it can’t go on much longer without serious consequences.
Any country which continues to live beyond its means and prints money (quantitative easing as it’s sometimes known) to plug the shortfall eventually runs out of credit and into slump. Just think Zimbabwe, or Venezuela.
There will be time enough for an eventual Covid inquiry to ruminate on the manifold mistakes the Government, NHS and Public Health England have made – but not yet.
The imperative is not to launch some timeconsuming, energy-sapping blame game. It is to get the country moving again. By any standards, the vaccination programme has been a spectacular success. So let’s not lose any time in unleashing its dividends.
As our audit so graphically shows, every new day of lockdown kills more businesses, jobs, futures and, tragically, people. It needs to end, urgently and irreversibly.
With the impact of the virus fading fast, Mr Johnson must show more ambition with his road map to freedom. It’s currently far too slow. The perfect time for renewal to begin is not somewhere in the middle distance. It’s here and now.