Bah humbug! No 10 battling Scrooge advisers for family Xmas

Fears were growing last night for families’ Christmas plans after a bleak warning from one of the Government’s scientific advisers.

Professor John edmunds said the notion that households will be able to mix over the festive period was ‘wishing thinking in the extreme’ unless the country takes ‘radical action now’.

It echoes the gloomy prediction of Nicola sturgeon’s medical adviser, who told scots they would have to settle for a ‘digital’ Christmas – suggesting family gatherings would be severely limited.

But Downing street tried to quash worries that celebrating

‘Severe number of cases’

Christmas would prove impossible. amid an extraordinary split between political leaders and their scientific advisers, No10 said it was the Government’s ‘ambition to ensure that people may celebrate Christmas as a family this year’.

Professor edmunds, who told MPs on Wednesday that tens of thousands of deaths could occur during the second wave of the pandemic, said ‘ radical measures’ were needed to tackle the spread of Covid-19 infections.

He said a circuit-breaker was needed across the whole country – or at least in places facing high numbers of cases. Professor edmunds, a member of the scientific advisory Group for emergencies, said: ‘The only way we can have a relatively safe and normal Christmas is if we take radical action now to reduce incidence – at the very least in high incidence areas – and keep the incidence low across the country by implementing a package of measures to reduce social contacts.

‘The notion we can carry on as we are and have a Christmas that we can celebrate normally with friends and family is wishful thinking in the extreme.’

Professor edmunds said on Wednesday that the country would see ‘ peaks around Christmas, in the new year of very severe numbers of cases throughout the UK’.

In scotland, national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch said yesterday he was hopeful that by sticking to tough restrictions, scots could enjoy ‘some form of normality’ over the festive break.

But he told BBC radio scotland’s Good Morning scotland programme: ‘Christmas is not going to be normal, there is absolutely no question about that. We’re not going to have large family groupings with multiple families around, that is fiction for this year. I am hopeful, if we can get the numbers down to a certain level, we may be able to get some form of normality. People should get their digital Christmas ready.’

earlier, Chief secretary to the Treasury steve Barclay told MPs: ‘I think few people expect it to be exactly as it would normally because we will be living with this virus for some time. and the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser have been very clear on that.

‘But, your point really was about the ability of families to spend Christmas together – that is something we all hope to be in a position to do.’