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The epidemiologist whose model helped shape Britain’s coronavirus lockdown strategy warned that new coronavirus restrictions will be needed in England “sooner rather than later” if the government wants to prevent the disease from re-emerging.
Professor Neil Ferguson, who resigned from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the country was facing a “perfect storm” following the easing of controls over the summer.
On Friday, Boris Johnson admitted in a speech that Britain is entering a second wave of coronavirus. It is understood that he is preparing to impose extensive measures at the national level to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Johnson will spend the weekend in talks with officials in Downing Street, the Telegraph reports.
They will consider options including closing pubs and restaurants or imposing curfews at 10 p.m. and a nationwide ban on friends and separated households from socializing.
Some 13.5 million people in the UK, one in five, are already facing local closures after the government introduced new measures in parts of North West England, Yorkshire and the Midlands.
Speaking during a visit to Oxfordshire, Johnson said: “Now we are seeing a second wave coming. We have seen it in France, in Spain, throughout Europe. I’m afraid it has been absolutely inevitable that we will see it in this country. “
Ferguson, who left Sage in May after breaking the rules by receiving visits from his lover at his home, told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that current infection levels are on par with those of late February.
He said: “If we leave it another two or four weeks, we will go back to the levels that we saw more like mid-March. That is clearly going to cause deaths, because people will be hospitalized. I think some additional measures are likely to be needed sooner rather than later. “
He added: “In a sense, we have a perfect storm right now with people, as they have been told, getting back to normal: schools reopening, increasing cases, so the testing system is under pressure.”
With cases nearly doubling in the space of a week and positive tests topping 4,000 on Friday, Downing Street is considering a drastic escalation to create what a government source called “a respite.”
Ferguson said he did not believe a second lockdown would be as restrictive as the first, but said the government needed to develop a set of “sustainable” coronavirus restrictions to avoid repeated lockdowns.
“You can block and then completely relax and then block again. My own opinion is that at the moment a temporary lockdown, it would not be like it was in March, it would be less restrictive than that, it would lower the infection figures to allow the test system to cope a little better.
“But I think really what we want is to have a sustainable set of measures until we have a vaccine, not to go through this cycle again.”
Boris johnson
“We are not only controlling the pandemic, with very, very low deaths and hospital admissions, but we will continue to address it, with local closures and with our superlative test and trace system.”
Boris johnson
“NHS Test and Trace is doing a heroic job, and today most people get a test result in person in 24 hours, and the average trip is less than 10 miles if someone has to make a trip to get one … [To Keir Starmer] We make the tough decisions, all he does is sit on the sidelines and tent. “
Boris johnson
[On the ‘moonshot’ proposal for mass, near-instant testing:] “We are hopeful that this approach will go mainstream by spring, and if it all comes together, even challenging sectors like theaters may have a much closer to normal life before Christmas.”Boris johnson
“We don’t have enough testing capacity now because, in an ideal world, I would like to test absolutely everyone who wants a test right away … Yes, there is a long way to go, and we will work day and night to make sure we go. there.”
Matt hancock
“Of course there is a challenge in testing … We have sent testing out to all schools to make sure they have testing available. But of course I also recognize the challenges of getting evidence … Evidence is available, although it is challenging to get. “
Labor Deputy Director Angela Rayner joined the calls for Johnson to consider rising coronavirus cases.
“We are deeply concerned about the sharp increase in infection rates. What we’ve seen in the last six months is that the government still can’t quite understand the basics, ”he told Today.
“The prime minister has to call a Cobra meeting this weekend. You have to look at the science and the evidence and you have to make sure that the measures are in place and a clear communication strategy about it so that people can do the right thing.
“It has been absolutely shocking to see how monumentally they have failed in the test, trace and trace system that they implemented.”
