New lockdown now to save Christmas, says Sage adviser

A NEW lockdown is needed immediately otherwise the country will still be living under social restrictions over Christmas, a Government scientific adviser has warned.

Prof John Edmunds, who is a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said drastic measures were now needed to avert a fresh spike in deaths.

He recommended a so-called “circuit breaker” lockdown, which would reimpose the strict rules seen at the first peak of the outbreak, for a short period to quell rising infection rates.

Speaking in a webinar for the Royal Society of Medicine, Prof Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “I would rather we did it right now, and we took the pain right now.”

He claimed the move would help arrest the resurgence before it got out of control and began “overwhelming the health service”, the Evening Standard reported. “I would put the circuit breakers in as fast as we can,” he said. “We should be working from home. We should be taking other measures to reduce our contacts over the winter.”

Failure to take decisive action now could also mean the likelihood of the country spending the festive period with their families becomes less likely, the professor said.

He said: “If we let the thing get out of hand now, then we will have a lot of cases. That unfortunately means a lot of deaths. I think we will have a difficult time over Christmas with the virus, and high rates.”

His warning came as more than 17,000 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the UK yesterday.

Prof Edmunds said: “I hate to be gloomy, but in the North of England now we are not that far away from the health service being stretched.”

He claimed the “primary reason” Britain suffered such a heavy death toll at the start of the crisis was due to the Government delaying a full lockdown until March 23.

He said: “I think we need to take action rapidly to avoid making the same mistake.”