England may be forced to extend monthlong lockdown if cases rise
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THE one-month lockdown for England announced by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the weekend could be extended as Britain struggles to contain a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior Cabinet member said yesterday.
After resisting the prospect of a new national lockdown for most of last month, Johnson announced on Saturday that new restrictions across England would kick in after midnight on Thursday morning and last until December 2.
The United Kingdom is grappling with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and scientists have warned a worst-case scenario of 80,000 dead this winter could be exceeded.
Cabinet minister Michael Gove said it was the government’s “fervent hope” that the lockdown would end on time, but that could not be guaranteed. “With a virus this malignant, and with its capacity to move so quickly, it would be foolish to predict with absolute certainty what will happen in four weeks’ time,” he said.
Britain has the worst virus death toll in Europe, with over 46,500 dead, and it passed 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday.
“We can definitively say that unless we take action now, the (health service) is going to be overwhelmed in ways that none of us could countenance,” Gove said.
Under the new restrictions, bars and restaurants can only offer take-out, non-essential shops must close and people will only be able to leave home for a short list of reasons including exercise.
Hairdressers, gyms, golf courses, swimming pools and bowling alleys are among venues that must shut down, and foreign holidays are barred.
Unlike during the UK’s first three-month lockdown, schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open.
The new lockdown announcement came 10 days after Johnson told parliament it would “make no sense at all” to “turn the lights out with a full national lockdown.”
Critics have accused him of dithering at the expense of both lives and the economy.
Johnson had hoped regional restrictions introduced in October would be enough to push the numbers of new infections down. But government scientific advisers predict that on the outbreak’s current trajectory, demand for hospital beds will exceed capacity by the first week of December, even if temporary hospitals set up during the first peak of the virus are reopened.
“Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day,” Johnson said as he announced the lockdown during a televised news conference.
The other constituents of the United Kingdom — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — have their own policies and enacted tougher COVID-19 health restrictions last month.
Government scientific adviser Jeremy Farrar said yesterday the lockdown would need to be extended beyond early December in absence of evidence of a shrinking pandemic.
“Much better to do that than remove these restrictions and then have to reimpose even more draconian restrictions around Christmas or soon into the new year,” he told the BBC.
Farrar said he had high hopes that vaccines would make a big difference to the pandemic next year, even if they might not be perfect.
British drugmaker AstraZeneca said yesterday Britain’s health regulator had started an accelerated review of its potential coronavirus vaccine.
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