MORNING SERIAL

ON September 21, the UK’s top scientific advisory body, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), published advice in which it called for a circuit-breaker lockdown.

It explicitly stated: Not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences in terms of direct Covid related deaths and the ability of the health service to meet needs.

As in the first wave, the burden of a large second wave would fall disproportionately on the frailest in our society, but also those on lower incomes and BAME communities.

You can’t really get any clearer than that. Lockdown now for a short period, or face ‘catastrophic consequences’. Make no mistake, the governments of every single UK nation failed their people by not immediately following that advice. Eventually, Wales did act before England, Scotland and NI by going into a two-week firebreak on 23 October, due to end on 9 November. There was one big problem with this: the UK Government’s furlough scheme, which was vital for preventing mass job losses, was due to stop at the end of November. This severely limited what the Welsh Government was able to do in terms of the length of the firebreak. If it kept Wales locked down without the financial protection of furlough, it would have been devastating for the Welsh economy. The Welsh Government went to Chancellor Rishi Sunak to ask him to extend the scheme for Wales during the brief firebreak. This request was rejected, severely limiting Wales’s ability to follow the clear advice from SAGE.

However, as cases continued to grow, the UK Government announced that there would be a circuit-breaker lockdown in England too, with an announcement then following that the furlough scheme would be extended after all.