PM slams brakes on new Covid freedoms
Johnson halts further easing of lockdown as he heeds ‘warning light’ of a second wave
Anna Mikhailova, Laura Donnelly
Sarah Knapton
BORIS JOHNSON has put the brakes on the easing of lockdown measures and the Chief Medical Officer has warned the country may have reached the limit on resuming normal life.
The Prime Minister said he was postponing planned changes due today and that it was right to heed the “warning light on the dashboard” amid concerns of a second wave.
Mr Johnson told a Downing Street press conference that wedding receptions of up to 30 people and the reopening of casinos, bowling alleys and skating rinks would not now be allowed for at least another fortnight. And pilot schemes to allow spectators at snooker, cricket and horse racing events this weekend were postponed, along with plans for indoor performances and “close contact” beauty treatments.
Prof Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, said it may not now be possible to ease lockdown further, adding the country had “probably reached near the limit or the limits” of what can be done to reopen society.
It came a day after restrictions were tightened in parts of the North, with people from different households barred from meeting indoors.
Public Health England data suggested another six areas may be heading for local lockdown – Eden in Cumbria, Sandwell in the Midlands, Northampton, Peterborough, Rotherham and Wakefield.
Mr Johnson said it was time to “squeeze that brake pedal” on reopening the economy amid rising fears the UK was on the brink of a second wave of the pandemic and that the country should not be complacent.
“As we see these rises around the world, we can’t fool ourselves that we are exempt,” he said.
He also revealed his latest public health slogan, as he urged people to stick to the principles of “hands, face, space… and get a test”.
He also voiced concerns about apparent failings in enforcement and said he had asked the Home Secretary “to work with the police and others to ensure the rules which are already in place are properly enforced.”
The Government has asked that more police enforce the wearing of face coverings – mandatory in indoor settings such as museums, galleries, cinemas and places of worship from next Saturday. However, advice encouraging employers to bring staff back to work was unchanged, with Mr Johnson saying firms had gone to “huge lengths to make workplaces safe”.
The decision to row back the easing of lockdown came after the Prime Minister was shown data from the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday night. Figures showed 59 people had tested positive out of 116,026 swab tests. The previous week, 45 tested positive out of 114,674, meaning the tipping point for a northern lockdown may have rested on just 14 extra positive tests.
Muslim leaders criticised the Government for the “shockingly short notice” of the measures, announced the night before the Islamic festival of Eid. The Daily Telegraph understands Mr Hancock raised concern privately that over-emphasising the importance of Eid as a factor behind the decision could inflame tensions.
Conservative MPS expressed concern at the decision to slow the reopening of the economy. Mark Francois, the chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPS, said: “The Government has got to stop sending contradictory signals.
“One day we are trying to lift the lockdown, the next we are trying to do the opposite, and the public are now rightfully confused.”
Meanwhile, Prof Whitty said there would need to be “difficult trade-offs” to allow further easing of measures, adding: “The idea that we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is clearly wrong.”
Mr Johnson said getting children back to school was a “national priority”, suggesting the trade-offs were likely to result in some other measures being delayed or reversed.
THE data when it landed on Boris Johnson’s desk on Wednesday evening made for grim reading. According to the latest Office for National Statistics report, Covid-19, suppressed under a strict lockdown, was on its way back.
“The ONS surveillance data was the clincher,” said a senior Cabinet source by way of explanation for the dramatic turn of events that followed.
Downing Street insisted last night that the Prime Minister and his team acted on the data – seemingly showing a 66 per cent rise in infections in just two weeks – with a decisiveness critical to keeping on top of the disease.
Within 36 hours of receiving the data, swathes of northern England had been thrown into a new, partial lockdown and the Prime Minister forced – as he put it yesterday in a televised address – “to squeeze the brake pedal” across the rest of the nation.
The writing had been on the wall earlier in the week when Mr Johnson warned that continental Europe was seeing “signs of a second wave”.
At 9.16pm on Thursday, Matt Hancock tweeted the first in a series of bombshells, culminating 15 hours later with Mr Johnson’s press conference.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen an in- creasing rate of transmission in parts of Northern England,” posted Mr Han- cock, just two hours and 44 minutes ahead of the new lockdown. From midnight, households in Greater Manchester, Bradford, Blackburn with Darwen and six other local authority areas were banned from mixing indoors or even in the garden. About four million people were affected and all this on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-adha.
Public health officials had examined the data on Wednesday and the decision was escalated the next day at a gold command meeting, chaired by Mr Hancock and attended by Prof Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, and Baroness Harding, who is in charge of the test-and-trace system.
Immediately gold command ended (at about 6pm), Mr Johnson convened his Covid Operations committee – known as “Covid O” – with his Health Secretary and joined by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Prof Whitty. Others joined by Zoom including Cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser.
The group was in agreement. A partial northern lockdown was needed urgently – Eid was to begin the next day – and a further easing of restrictions on Aug 1 countermanded. England would be going backwards.
Yesterday, when asked if the festival was a factor, Mr Hancock told the BBC’S Today programme: “No, my heart goes out to the Muslim communities in these areas because I know how important the Eid celebrations are.”
Two separate sources, however, have said that Eid was discussed at gold command and it was agreed that no ministers would mention it in public, fearful of stirring a far-right Islampohobic backlash as well as causing distress in the Muslim community. A government source said: “Ministers are very, very alive to the sensitivities of this, given the significance of Eid to the Muslim community. There was just no choice, the urgency of it was clear. The point about the data is that what it is showing is household transmission – it’s not about the level it is at now but where this could lead.”
Another senior government source said: “We were aware of the downside of doing it the night before Eid, because of the impact that it has.”
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‘MPS were furious. They were calling it an outrage. One of them was all over the place, screaming his head off’
subgroup had warned that local lockdowns would be “potentially problematic” during the festival.
At just after 6pm on Thursday, northern MPS were sent an email advising them there would be a conference call with Helen Whately, the health minister, and Baroness Harding at 6.30pm. Some MPS either ignored it or hadn’t spotted it. Mr Hancock texted at 6.29pm, urging them to tune in. Many, including a number of Tories holding on to marginal former “Red Wall” Labour seats, went apoplectic.
“They were furious. They were calling it an outrage. One of them was all over the place, screaming his head off,” said an MP who witnessed the row, “Once they got past their anger, they began asking fairly simple questions and the minister’s answers were completely confused. I got the impression the decision had only just been made.”
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, said: “These new restrictions have been introduced over a large area even though there are massive variations in infection rates..”
Local authority leaders discovered the new measures at about 7pm. Alyson Barnes, Labour leader of Rossendale borough council, said it was hard to understand when her area had recorded just four positive test results in a week. “I cannot think it is anything else than Eid,” she said. “They [ministers] are telling us all to stay at home but they wouldn’t have done it at Christmas.”
Telegraph analysis shows more than 2.7million in the affected areas live in neighbourhoods with fewer than four confirmed cases in the last 14 days.
Police were also caught cold. Officers in West Yorkshire were finding out from social media that they would have to apply strict, if not entirely clear, new restrictions. Brian Booth, chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “We are talking about areas and communities where there are already tensions around policing.”
At the “Covid O” meeting, the Prime Minister decided to impose the northern lockdown that night but save the Aug 1 reverse until the press conference the next day. Cabinet was told yesterday morning, followed by a briefing with the devolved administrations and another with opposition leaders. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, announced in response a ban on Scottish residents visiting England’s north.
At the press conference, while Mr Johnson was telling the nation it was time to put on the brakes, Prof Chris Whitty, alongside, was seemingly hitting reverse. “We have probably reached or neared the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society,” he said, adding that it was now wrong to think “we can open up everything and keep the virus under control”.
On some readings though, the correct course of action is less clear. The ONS estimated that 35,700 people in England were infected with Covid-19 between July 20 and July 26, or 1 in 1,500 people. The week before statisticians had calculated around 27,700 were infected, or about 1 in 2,000.
However, the ONS data has been jumping around wildly. On June 25 cases were worse – at 1 in 1,100 and a fortnight later had swung to 1 in 3,900.
The new calculation is based on just 59 people testing positive out of 116,026 swab tests (0.05 per cent). The previous week just 45 people tested positive out of 114,674. (0.039 per cent). It means the tipping point may have rested on just 14 extra positive tests.
The ONS also admitted that it was unable to spot any concrete regional differences. In fact, data showed the north-west having one of the lowest incidences, while suggesting cases were rising in the East Midlands and London. Mr Johnson is taking no chances.