Warning for PM over ‘peak’ claim

Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday said the UK was ‘past the peak’ in the Covid-19 battle, but Scottish Government figures later warned his claim could harm the fight to kill off the virus.

Scottish Government figures last night cautioned against Boris Johnson’s claim the UK is “past the peak” of the Covid-19 pandemic, warning it could “jeopardise” the fight against the virus if the public feel they can start flouting lockdown controls.

The prime minister struck an optimistic tone during his address yesterday afternoon as he said infections and deaths from Covid-19 in the UK were now “on the downward slope”.

“We’ve come under what could have been a vast peak”, the prime minister said.

“As though we’ve been going through some huge alpine tunnel and we can now see the sunlight and pasture ahead of us.”

At the Holyrood briefing earlier in the day, Nicola Sturgeon said Scots had been “superb” at sticking to the restrictions but there was evidence of more people moving around the country in the last week.

A senior Scottish Government source told The Courier there were concerns about the message Mr Johnson was sending, adding: “We need to be very wary of suggesting that we are through the worst of this – there are clear signs for optimism but we cannot let up in efforts to suppress the virus.”

The comments came as it was announced the cumulative number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK had hit 26,771, which is thought to be the highest mortality rate in Europe.

Heading his first Downing Street briefing since falling ill, Mr Johnson praised Britons for having avoided an “uncontrollable and catastrophic” epidemic in which there could have been “500,000 deaths”.

The prime minister said a “huge amount of work” was now going into an “exit strategy”, with the first draft to be published next week.

While it will offer a “road map, a menu of options” for how restrictions could be eased in future, Mr Johnson cautioned that it would not give any timings as they would depend on the science.

He said: “We will have to beat this disease by our growing resolve and ingenuity, so I will be setting out a comprehensive plan next week to explain how we can get our economy moving; how we can get our children back to school; how we can travel to work and how we can make life in the workplace safer.

“In short how we can continue to suppress the disease and at the same time restart the economy.”

He insisted that to avoid the “disaster” of a second peak the UK must meet five tests before the lockdown can be lifted.

“Keeping the R down is going to be absolutely vital to our recovery and we can only do it by our collective discipline and working together.

“I know we can do it because we did it, we have shown we can do it in phase one.”

The reproduction rate number is a way of rating a disease’s ability to spread and is the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.

Scientific adviser Patrick Vallance told the briefing that he believed the R was between 0.6 and 0.9 across the country.

Mr Johnson suggested, like First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did earlier this week, that the use of face coverings will form part of a package of measures to safely ease the lockdown and keep the R number down.

Mr Johnson went on to say he was “not going to pretend” the government had not made any mistakes in the handling of the crisis.

“We’re determined urgently and in particular to overcome those challenges that have in the last few weeks been so knotty and so infuriating,” the PM said.

“I’m not going to minimise the logistical problems we face in getting the right protective gear to the right people at the right time, both in the NHS and in care homes.”

Sir Keir Starmer said the prime minister’s commitment to outline an exit strategy next week was a “step in the right direction”.

The Labour leader said: “I’ve been calling on the prime minister to have a plan for the next stage and exit strategy. We’ve been pushing hard on that in the last week or two.

“The prime minister has now said he’s going to have a plan next week.

“So I think that shows that we were right to challenge on it, and I’m pleased that we’re going to see a plan.”

Top left: Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a media briefing at Downing Street; Top right: Nicola Sturgeon at St Andrew’s House, Edinburgh; Above: Chief Constable Iain Livingstone warned of the difficulties of policing the public if different rules were applied across the country.