Don’t buy into the Freedom Day hype, warns Sturgeon
Talk of a return to normal life ‘not sensible’ as virus cases ‘still too high’
NICOLA Sturgeon has warned people not to buy into the hype surrounding “Freedom Day” south of the Border, as Boris Johnson was reluctantly forced to self-isolate because of a Covid contact.
The First Minister said it was “not sensible” to talk as if life could fully return to normal when cases of the virus are “still too high”.
All social distancing restrictions end today in England despite cases surging to more than 50,000 a day last week, with a far more limited relaxation of rules in Scotland.
As official Scottish figures showed another 1,735 people testing positive, the First Minster stressed the easing of restrictions would happen “gradually” in Scotland, with strict group limits, a one-metre distance rule in public places, and face masks still in force.
The plea followed the Prime Minister being accused of presiding over Government “chaos”, after Health Secretary Sajid Javid tested positive for Covid on Saturday.
Number 10 said Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak had both been pinged by NHS Test and
Trace as close contacts of Mr Javid after meeting him at length in Downing Street on Friday.
However, unlike 500,000 other people in the UK at present, the pair would not be self-isolating.
Instead, they would take part in a Government-run pilot programme, receiving daily tests to allow them to work for “essential business”, Number 10 said yesterday morning.
The announcement produced a furious backlash, with Mr Johnson accused of breathtaking hypocrisy and undermining public trust in health messaging around Covid.
The Government initially tried to defend the decision. On BBC One’s Andrew Marr show, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the pilot was “not just for politicians”, but other public sector organisations as well.
He said: “It ensures that the PM and the Chancellor can conduct the most essential business but at other times of the day they won’t be mixing with people outside their own households.”
Under the Government’s rules, even the double-vaccinated must self-isolate for 10 days after a close Covid contact, a requirement due
to stay in place until August 16. However, within three hours of Downing Street’s initial statement, the outcry led to both the PM and Chancellor having a change of heart.
In an inauspicious start to the rule change in England, Mr Johnson will now spend Freedom Day self-isolating at his country residence, Chequers.
In a video message posted on social media, apparently shot on his phone, the Prime Minister said he had only “briefly” considered skipping quarantine to take part in the pilot, which is being trialled by the Cabinet Office and other public and private sector employers.
He said: “We did look briefly at the idea of us taking part in the pilot scheme which allows people to test daily, but I think it’s far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules and that’s why I’m going to be self isolating until Monday, the 26th of July.
“I know how frustrating it all is, but I urge everybody to stick with the programme, and take the appropriate course of action when you’re asked to do so by NHS Test and Trace.”
Amid expert warnings the change in the system could cause chaos and upward of 100,000 infections a day, the PM also begged people to “please, please, please be cautious”.
Mr Johnson, who previously said he would follow “data not dates”, also defended the Government’s decision to press on with a “big opening up” today, despite Covid cases surging.
He said: “If we don’t do it now, then we’ll be opening up in the autumn, the winter months, when the virus has the advantage of the cold weather.
“We lose the precious firebreak that we get with the school holidays.
“If we don’t do it now, we’ve got to ask ourselves – when will we ever do it? “So this is the right moment.” However, he went on: “But we’ve got to do it cautiously; we’ve got to remember that this virus is, sadly, still out there.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the Government of “double standards” and being “contemptuous of the British public” over the Prime Minister’s hastily abandoned plan to avoid quarantine.
He said: “The Prime Minister is causing utter chaos with his reckless decision-making. Hundreds of thousands of people are having to self-isolate, and they’re doing the right thing. What happens when the rules apply to the Prime Minister? He tries to wriggle out of them and to pretend he’s on some pilot scheme that exempts him.
“The only reason that he’s U-turned on this is because he’s been busted. “It’s like bank robbers who’ve got caught and now they’re offering the money back. One rule for them, another rule for everybody else. It’s contemptuous of the British public.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the PM was “guilty of yet another monumental and dangerous failure of leadership – a hallmark of his chaotic and corrupt Government, adding: “He clearly labours under the mistaken belief that necessary rules which apply to everyone else do not affect him and his cabal of entitled chums like Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
“Yet again, he is guilty of breathtaking arrogance and a cavalier disregard of public health.
“Meanwhile, as Covid infection rates continue to spiral, his decision to press ahead this week with the full removal of almost every Covid restriction increasingly looks reckless.”
Professor Neil Ferguson – whose modelling led to the first lockdown in March 2020 – said daily cases could reach 200,000 before the current wave of the pandemic finally peaked.
He said this could result in 2,000 hospital admissions a day leading to “major disruption” and further backlogs in NHS services.
Businesses have also warned of shortages on the shelves as the number of people off work keeps rising.
With growing reports of disruption to supply chains, public transport and the NHS, CBI president Lord Bilimoria called for an immediate end to the requirement to self-isolate for people who have been fully vaccinated.
Union leaders warned Freedom Day in England could turn into Chaos Day. After London Underground closed a line on Saturday because staff were pinged, the RMT union said transport services were “on a knife edge”.