Constructive ideas

The apparent spike of coronavirus cases in Leicester and the threat to keep the city in lockdown for longer than the rest of England has become a key test of the Government’s pandemic strategy. On Saturday, many of the restrictions in place for the past three months are to be lifted. While most people might consider this to be a cause for national celebration, it is being accompanied by a litany of objections from selfstyled public health champions. Professor Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser who set up a group to shadow the official Sage advisory group, has condemned ending the two-metre rule and says opening pubs and restaurants will lead to thousands more deaths. Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said the country was “on a knife edge” and predicted a surge in cases next month and into the autumn.

That may well happen. However, that is not a legitimate argument for remaining in perpetual quarantine, but for coming up with practical ideas for dealing with it. Perhaps, instead of threatening more lockdown measures, the Government should look seriously at an approach recommended by scientists in a paper published in the Royal Society Open Science journal. Written by Julian Peto, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and 10 other experts, it suggests lifting all lockdown restrictions for a “medium-sized city” to see if coronavirus can be controlled through large-scale weekly testing of residents.

Innovative thinking like this, not more scaremongering, is needed if there is to be a workable policy for living with a virus that will inevitably spread as people interact once more.