Party Lines Spikes bring threat of local lockdowns
REMINDER THAT COVID-19 HAS NOT GONE AWAY YET
NOBODY wants a in their area.
But as we saw last week, the Government is prepared to introduce them at short notice, even though they know it’s going to lead to criticism.
It’s partly because Boris Johnson is desperate to avoid another national lockdown.
Forcing people to stay at home caused an increase in mental health problems. There’s even evidence that people started drinking more.
Children missed out on schooling, and those from lower-income households are believed to have fallen behind the most. This is something that will affect them for years to come, or maybe the rest of their life.
And businesses suffered. People have lost their jobs and there will be more redundancies to come.
Mr Johnson is desperate to avoid a second nationwide lockdown. The country just can’t afford it. So he’s hoping that tough local measures do the trick instead.
But there is clear evidence that Covid-19 hasn’t gone away.
SAGE, the Government’s official scientific advisory body, has warned it does not have confidence that the Covid-19 virus is under control.
On Friday it published estimates
local lockdown of “R” - the rate of reproduction of the virus.
The Government’s aim from the start has been to bring R below 1 and keep it there. If R is below 1 than the number of cases will fall, but if it is above 1 then the number of cases will rise exponentially.
And Friday’s statement said: “SAGE does not have confidence that R is currently below 1 in England.”
A resurgence of Covid-19 cases led to fresh local lockdown restrictions being imposed in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire, while restrictions remain in place in Leicestershire.
Public Health England, the national body monitoring coronavirus, has also named eight further places it is concerned about. They are Eden, Luton, Northampton, Oadby and Wigston, Peterborough, Rotherham, Sandwell and Wakefield.
They could be next in line for local lockdowns.
There will naturally be debate about whether the government could have prevented all this. Perhaps it could have introduced the national lockdown earlier, or continued it for longer.
But what we’re seeing in the UK and across Europe is a reminder that no government can make coronavirus go away.