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England could face “national action” and “very extensive local lockdowns” in the event of a wave of winter coronavirus, the British government has said, with a “worst-case scenario” of 80,000 deaths.
“A second wave is clearly visible in other parts of the world,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the Times newspaper.
“Cases are increasing again and we have to use very extensive local closures or take more national measures. We are not ruling it out, but we do not want to see it,” he said.
Britain has been one of the countries hardest hit by the disease, with more than 41,000 deaths, but has recently eased lockdown restrictions as hospitalizations and deaths have declined.
But cases have increased in recent weeks and the government is concerned about the arrival of another wave of the virus during the flu season.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, which was hit by a local lockdown, has said that decisions to relax or tighten local lockdown restrictions for coronavirus should not be “imposed” by the government.
Andy Burnham called for more negotiations and agreements between Westminster and local authorities on these issues.
The former Labor cabinet minister told BBC Breakfast: “I think we will better negotiate what awaits us in the autumn and winter if the government listens to local leaders, they know their communities.”
“It wasn’t just Greater Manchester that we were invalidated. In Bradford, basically the communities were divided there, some are still under restrictions, some are not.
“So we have the situation where some people in the middle of the street are subjected to restrictions and others are not.
“My main message to the government is that they should not impose these things from London when they are going to affect the communities in this way, it must be through negotiation and agreement.”
Although more restrictions could be reintroduced, schools would likely remain open, according to a report prepared for the government by the science advisory group Sage and broadcast on the BBC’s Newsnight.
By November “policy measures will be implemented to reduce out-of-home contacts to half their normal pre-March 2020 levels,” he said.
The report found that 85,000 more could die in Britain, with more than 80,000 in England alone, in a “reasonable worst case scenario”, although it emphasized that this figure was not “a prediction” and the data is subject to “significant uncertainty”.
The estimate assumes that schools will remain open and that government tracking and quarantine measures will be around 40% effective.
Carl Heneghan of the University of Oxford told the BBC that the model was “implausible” and that he assumed that “we have not learned anything from the first wave of this disease.”
The government told the broadcaster that its plans were under constant review and were driven by the latest scientific advice.
Additional reporting PA
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