What the commentators said

It’s not as if Downing Street hadn’t been warned, said Tom Kibasi in The Guardian. Epidemiologists predicted a second wave months ago; Sage warned in July that it could cost 85,000 lives. Yet “just as Johnson had dithered in March, he dithered again in October”, when fast action could have saved lives. Now, England faces a longer lockdown than would have been necessary had ministers only bothered to listen to their own advisers. By the time they finally did so, the virus was spreading exponentially, said Tony Allen-Mills in The Sunday Times. On 1 September, there were 59 Covid patients on ventilators in English intensive care units; by 28 October, there were 788. At that point, the PM felt there was little choice for England but to follow France and Belgium into a “hardcore, but potentially lifesaving” lockdown.

Well, I’ve looked at the rationale behind the decision, said Ross Clark in The Daily Telegraph – and, frankly, it “doesn’t pass the smell test”. The Government’s change of heart followed Public Health England’s warning that Covid deaths could hit 4,000 a day by Christmas. But that doomsday scenario looks far-fetched: new cases are already levelling off. And when I asked PHE for the science behind its warnings, I drew a blank. Alas, it seems the Government has again been panicked into a lockdown by “alarmist modelling” dressed up as scientific fact. The case for a lockdown was “far from a slam dunk”, agreed David Smith in The Times. But there is at least reason to believe that – while it will send the economy into reverse – this lockdown won’t be as devastating as the first. The economy has grown quickly in recent months, and the new rules are less restrictive than before. If the lockdown ends promptly, Britain can still hope for a “W” shaped recovery. But with evidence that the virus is mutating and doubts over when – if ever – a vaccine will be available, we need to start planning for the long haul, said Camilla Cavendish in the FT. Even if we do get a vaccine, it’s unlikely to eliminate Covid entirely. Relying on lockdowns in the long run isn’t sustainable. “We must learn to live with this thing.”