Party Lines PM may soon play by regional rules
BORIS Johnson is coming under pressure to lift the lockdown swiftly in some regions of the country and keep it in place in others.
It would mark a change from his approach so far. The Government has insisted the whole of England must, slowly, come out of lockdown together.
The Government also said restrictions could be re-imposed on specific areas where there is a spike in coronavirus cases, with schools and businesses closing again in the towns and cities affected – but that would come in the future, if at all.
However, there are growing calls for Mr Johnson to adopt a regional approach immediately.
Gateshead Council has refused to publicise the Government’s new “stay alert” message – and instead is sticking with the old “stay home” slogan.
Mayors in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region have also claimed changes to the lockdown announced last Sundays are a response to the situation in London and may not be right for the north of England.
At the same time, there is some pressure on the government to speed up easing the lockdown in the south.
Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers, a London MP, has said the low numbers of new cases in the capital “make the case for further easing of the lockdown in London.”
It seems the government might be open to the idea of changing its approach.
Asked whether the Government might allow regional changes, Cabinet Minister Brandon
Lewis said: “It is too early to say that yet.”
One of the things which has prompted this debate is we now have estimates for the reproductive rate of the virus in each region. This figure, known as R, tells us how many people on average a person with the virus passes it on to.
If R is more than one, the virus is spreading exponentially. If R is less than one the number of infected people will fall.
In London, R is believed to be around 0.4, according to researchers from Public Health England and Cambridge University – but in the North East and Yorkshire it is believed to be 0.8.
This makes a huge difference. In London, it is believed 23.9 people are now being infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus each day, on average.
In the North East and Yorkshire, it is 4,320 people each day.
It was different when this health crisis first began. London was hit hardest.
That explains why researchers believe 20% of London’s population have had Covid-19, one in five people, whereas the figure for the North East and Yorkshire is 11% – a little more than one in ten people.
So the whole country has suffered but it is in London the virus now appears, to some extent at least, to be under control. Can it really make sense to lift the lockdown across the whole of England at once?
Introducing regional rules would raise all sorts of issues, but it may nonetheless be something the Government has to consider.