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A four-week lockdown will apply in England from Thursday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is once again accused of acting too late. In the spring, the delayed crackdown had devastating consequences.
Boris Johnson in front of the media: Tough cuts in November should allow the English to celebrate a reasonably normal Christmas.
“Now there is no alternative,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a hastily called news conference Saturday night. A few days ago he saw things differently: Johnson rejected a national lockdown for a long time, although even scientists who advised the government recommended that step in September due to the sharp increase in corona infections. Now there will be a second lockdown, at least in England. Signs of impending steps leaked out Friday night, forcing Johnson to communicate with the public ahead of schedule.
Schools are saved this time
As of Thursday, shops in England should only be able to open basic supplies for the population. Pubs and restaurants have to close, but are allowed to offer delivery services. Meetings of members of different households in closed rooms are prohibited. Leisure facilities must close. A call has been made for a few weeks to work at the central office. Unlike the first closure in spring, schools and colleges will remain open. The restrictions only apply to England; the rest of the country has its own regimes.
Britain has the highest number of deaths from the pandemic in Europe. More than 46,000 Britons died of Covid-19, most of them in the spring. One of the main reasons for the high death toll is the late shutdown, which was imposed later at that time than in other European countries.
Model calculations by researchers advising the government paint a bleak picture for the coming winter. In the worst case, the death toll could rise to more than 80,000. Therefore, the scientists put into discussion a brief national lockdown in late September, as it became known later. The best time to do this is fall break, when schools are closed anyway, they argued. These fall holidays took place in the week that is now coming to an end; But Johnson missed this opportunity.
Patchwork quilt nationwide
Just a few days ago, the head of government insisted on combating the growing number of infections with regional measures. The government was based on a three-stage system in which stricter measures were imposed on local sources of infection in England. However, even the highest level lagged behind a total lockdown. In recent days, more and more parts of England had to move to this higher level.
This created a mosaic across the country, because the rest of the UK refused to accept Johnson’s wavering tactics: Scotland introduced a five-step system, while Wales had already imposed a two-week lockdown that lasted until 9 September. November. Northern Ireland has tightened the rules for four weeks and has also closed schools in the last two weeks.
More recently, almost 22,000 new corona infections per day and 326 deaths were recorded in the UK. The total number of infections amounted to just over a million. There is little room left, chief physician Chris Whitty said next to Johnson on Saturday. According to Patrick Vallance, the government’s top scientific adviser, a development at least as bad as the first wave threatens. Without countermeasures, the number of hospitalizations and deaths could peak in the spring of December and the capacity of hospitals could be depleted.
Turned on a work course
Johnsons defended his reluctance Saturday as “sensible” but also said that no responsible head of government could ignore the latest figures. The move is politically sensitive for him because the Labor opposition has long called for a tightening. But the balancing act is not easy: Infections are increasing dramatically in the north of England, where Johnson won many voters in the last general election. Some municipalities are not enthusiastic about the three-step system due to the economic damage. Johnson had to force the mayor of the Manchester area to tighten the restrictions.
Economic damage is also feared within the Conservative Party and the government cabinet. On Saturday, Johnson vowed to extend the British short-time work model until November, a victory against resistance from the Treasury. The part-time work would have expired at the end of September, although the government had to implement a less generous interim solution due to regional blockades.
The lockdown, which has spread to the whole of England, is also the receipt for the mistakes made in the summer: the number of new infections in Britain has risen markedly since the beginning of September. But the government had yet to establish an effective system for crown testing and contact tracing. Capabilities were quickly overwhelmed. Now, in November, with rapid testing and the help of the military, the test system should finally reach the world class that Johnson always praised.
