COVID CURBS MAY BE BACK NEXT WINTER

Whitty’s grim warning ++ 1.1m now infected ++ Tory MPs demand ‘national mobilisation’ to hit vaccine target

COVID restrictions may still be needed next winter, the chief medical officer said last night.

Chris Whitty issued the stark warning after it emerged that more than a million people in England are now infected – a rate of around one in 50.

Saying the danger from the killer virus was ‘extraordinarily high’, the professor pleaded with the public to obey the latest lockdown

rules. He said this, coupled with a rapid rollout of vaccines, might allow restrictions to be gradually eased from the spring onward.

But he cautioned that some social-distancing measures might return next winter when conditions will again ‘benefit the virus’. He added: ‘We should not kid ourselves that this just disappears in the spring.’

MPs yesterday told Boris Johnson that a ‘ national mobilisation’ was needed to accelerate the deployment of the two approved vaccines.

Tory backbenchers also challenged Matt Hancock on the ambition to give jabs to the 13million most vulnerable Britons by mid-February.

They said they were not reassured by the Health Secretary’s ‘ heavily caveated’ reassurances that left him plenty of ‘wriggle room’. The target requires two million vaccinations to be carried out every week.

Mr Johnson yesterday said he had ‘no choice’ but to order a third lockdown after a new variant of the disease sparked an explosion in cases.

The Prime Minister also said 1.1million people in England had now been vaccinated, along with a further 200,000 in the rest of the UK.

The figure includes 650,000 over-80s – 23 per cent of the group most likely to be hospitalised or die of Covid.

Mr Johnson said ‘jab-by-jab’ inoculation updates would finally be published from Monday.

He also pledged to bring almost 1,000 vaccination centres on stream by the end of this week, and to open seven major hubs in sports stadiums and exhibition centres next week.

The Prime Minister said every arm of the state, including the armed forces, was working ‘absolutely flat out’ on the vaccination programme.

But there were still questions last night over whether a shortage of glass vials or the stringent safety checks demanded by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority would cause delays.

As officials recorded a record 60,916 cases in a single day, along with 830 more deaths:

■ Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled another £4.6billion bailout for firms hit by the latest lockdown measures:

■ Education Secretary Gavin Williamson faced calls to quit after it emerged A-level and GCSE grades may be decided by teachers again;

■ Care home residents suffered heartbreak as loved ones were banned from visiting;

■ Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi appealed to Mail readers to pitch in by helping loved ones travel to their vaccine appointments;

■ The PM refused to guarantee that schools would reopen this academic year;

■ He also prepared for another Tory rebellion when MPs vote on the latest lockdown rules;

■ Hospitals in London and Kent cancelled urgent cancer surgery as beds filled up with Covid patients;

■ Chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance said vaccines were likely to be effective against new variants of the disease;

■ Economists warned the lockdown would spark a double-dip recession;

■ Holiday firms began cancelling bookings for the duration of the lockdown.

Mr Johnson last night put pressure on medical regulators to speed up approval of batches of the new Oxford vaccine, a process he suggested was now the main bottleneck.

He said a ‘rate-limiting’ factor was an approval process that can take three weeks per batch – and this would now be ‘ ratcheted up’. Professor

Whitty said the target of two million jabs a week was ‘realistic but not easy’.

Calling for a collective effort to defeat the virus, he added: ‘If people stick to the rules really strongly and at the same time the NHS is vaccinating as fast as it can, then our hope is the lockdown will be enough.

‘But we’ve all got to do that, this has very much got to be a collective effort. No one can do this on their own.’

Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Government’s SAGE advisory group, said the lockdown would save tens of thousands of lives.

But he said the virulent nature of the new variant of the disease meant it might not be enough to reverse the spread of the virus.

‘I think the virus is different and it may be that the lockdown measures we had are not enough,’ he said.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove yesterday suggested Covid restrictions were unlikely to be eased until at least March.

ONCE more, the nation is asked to stiffen its sinews for the long climb back to normality from this ghastly trough of despair. Once more, the path to the top of the hill seems unbearably hard.

Take yesterday. More than 1.1 million people now have Covid, daily infections hit a record 60,916 and deaths are rocketing. The new, more transmissible strain has swept relentlessly across the kingdom.

The whole country woke again to the grim reality of life beneath the grey clouds of lockdown. For most, the immediate future spells family estrangements and staring at the same four walls. The only thing rendering it tolerable is the prospect of the vaccine rollout – the key to ending the crisis.

So it was reassuring to hear Boris Johnson vow to use ‘every second’ of the draconian restrictions to inoculate the most vulnerable people by mid-February. Can No 10 meet this make- or-break commitment, which could lead to curbs being eased?

By delivering two million injections a week, the Prime Minister certainly thinks so (although, more ominously, lockdown commissars Michael Gove and Matt Hancock cast doubt on the deadline).

Still, it is a tall order. Would anyone be so foolish as to bet on an organisation as beset with bureaucratic dogma as the NHS hitting such a challenging delivery target?

Moreover, the Government’s CV during the pandemic (which has been an unenviable task, we concede) has been pockmarked by U-turns, shambles and bungles. Can this leopard really change its spots?

So a war effort is needed – ‘a new Dunkirk spirit’, as David Blunkett argues on this page. Every arm of the nation must be mobilised – both public and private sector.

Shortages of glass vials for vaccines? A tortuous approvals process for individual batches? Red tape preventing retired doctors and nurses from wielding needles?

All these emerging problems were eminently foreseeable. Now they must be resolved imaginatively – and urgently.

From drive-in vaccine centres and 24/7 sites to drafting in the Army, the pace must be picked up. The clock is ticking.

Meanwhile, the promise to publish daily inoculation figures, alongside the ghoulish infection and death statistics, is sensible.

That will not only focus minds in Whitehall, but also incentivise the public to stick to the gruelling restrictions.

Given the eye- watering economic, healthcare and educational cost of the crisis, Downing Street must rip open the purse strings to get the vaccine out. The price of failure would be much higher.