Pubs may be shut in strict ‘traffic light’ lockdowns
A NEW three-tier lockdown system could pave the way for the closure of pubs and a ban on social contact outside of household groups, leaked plans revealed last night.
The draft traffic-light-style system is designed to simplify the current patchwork of local restrictions, which apply to a quarter of Britons. The measures could be applied locally or nationally.
Its three ‘alert’ levels rise in severity, with No3 the most serious.
That level contains tougher measures than any seen so far in local lockdowns since Leicester on June 30. They include closure of hospitality and leisure businesses, no social contact outside your household in any setting, restrictions on overnight stays away from home and no organised non-professional sports.
The plans, dated September 30 and leaked to The Guardian, have not yet been signed off by No10.
The leaked document said: ‘Research tells us that people would welcome a clearer and simpler structure to the advice and rules that they should follow.’
Level 3 would be ‘triggered in geographical areas or nationally when alert level 2 measures have not contained the spread of the virus or where there has been a significant rise in transmission’.
Under level 2, people must not meet others apart from their support bubble outside their household in private dwellings or gardens or in pubs, restaurants or other settings.
Level 2 would be ‘triggered in geographical areas or nationally when there has been a rise in transmission, which cannot be contained through local responses’. Visiting care homes will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances and travel should be limited to essential purposes, although holidays are permitted within households.
Level 1 contains restrictions currently in place across England, including the ‘rule of six’ for gatherings indoors and out, the wearing of face-coverings, the 10pm curfew on hospitality businesses and numbers limited to 15 at weddings and 30 at funerals. Details of the plans emerged as Boris Johnson acknowledged yesterday that people in local lockdown areas were ‘frustrated’ and many were ‘furious’ with him and his Government over the handling of the pandemic.
He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I appreciate the fatigue that people are experiencing...but we have to work together, follow the guidance and get the virus down whilst keeping the economy moving.’ The Prime Minister said it was ‘too early to say’ whether lockdowns were working, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock elsewhere insisted: ‘There’s no doubt about it.’
Last night it was reported that the Covid-19 infection rate in Manchester had rocketed more than 15-fold since the local lockdown was introduced. Statistics show the city’s rate is now 335.9 cases per 100,000 – one of the worst in the country. When restrictions were introduced across parts of the North West in July, the figure was around 20 per 100,000.
Meanwhile, a leading scientist warned that this fatigue could soon lead to people not complying with the rules. Devi Sridhar, an adviser to the Scottish Government and professor of public health at Edinburgh University, stressed that another national lockdown would not be the best way to suppress the virus.
She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘I think the large majority of people are still following the rules but, of course, fatigue is setting in.’
She added: ‘Suppression does not have to mean lockdown...Perhaps one of the mistakes has to be to think that the only way to suppress this virus is through lockdowns.’
Professor Sridhar said other countries had shown a combination of test and trace, strict border restrictions on movement and good compliance with the rules of containing the virus could be effective.
Elsewhere, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said ministers risked losing public trust in the North. He said: ‘I certainly feel this week that we’ve reached a bit of a turning point. The Government are really in danger of losing the public in the North of England.
‘If they carry on imposing restrictions on the North without proper support for the businesses and the employees affected..., we will see a winter of levelling- down and the North-South divide getting bigger.’
‘Fatigue is setting in’