Lockdown: Tougher Covid restrictions on horizon, ministers warn
England may face tighter lockdown restrictions amid scientists’ warnings that current measures are not doing enough to reduce Covid rates, the UK’s vaccine tsar has suggested.
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, today said current restrictions may be scaled up as he admitted he was “worried” at the current picture.
“We’ve got to review everything while we bring this new variant under control,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.
Under current lockdown rules, people must stay at home at all times other than for shopping for essential items, exercise, and if they cannot work from home.
But Zahawi suggested ministers may scrap an exemption allowing two people from different households to meet up for exercise, as Covid rates continue to spike across the country.
“We don’t want to use tougher measures, the lockdown is tough, schools are shut, but it is important to remember this virus loves social interactions,” Zahawi said.
“The exemption is in place for two people to walk, to exercise together. We don’t want to go tougher — but we review everything,” he added.
The minister said the rules are not “boundaries to be pushed against”.
Meanwhile, supermarkets face being legally required to enforce mask wearing and social distancing as part of a wider crackdown on lockdown compliance.
The Metropolitan Police last week announced it will no longer “reason with” those not wearing masks in indoor public spaces, and will instead hand out fines more quickly.
In a new hardline approach, the Met warned that people will also face fines if they have no legitimate explanation for leaving their homes.
It comes as Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, this morning issued a stark warning to the public that the next few weeks would be the worst in the pandemic for the NHS.
Whitty told BBC Breakfast: “I think everybody accepts that this is the most dangerous time we’ve really had in terms of numbers into the NHS at this point in time. Politicians from every political party, leaders from every nation, are looking at this incredibly seriously at the moment and all of the rest of us have to as well.”
“The new variant undoubtedly makes every situation more dangerous than the previous situation,” he said, adding that “people shouldn’t be leaving their home unless they absolutely have to, and if they do, keep their distance.”
It comes after the UK’s death toll from coronavirus tipped past the 80,000 mark over the weekend as daily Covid fatalities hit a record of 1,325 on Saturday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Cabinet ministers last night that the situation in the NHS was “parlous and perilous”, with fears hospitals will soon be overwhelmed if compliance does not improve.
Seven mass vaccination sites opened their doors across the country today as part of government plans to vaccinate 13m of the most vulnerable by mid-February.
The Nightingale Hospital in London’s Excel Centre will today start vaccinating over-80s, while also providing non-Covid-related urgent care for around 60 patients, as ministers scramble to ease pressure on the capital’s hospitals.
However, scientists have warned that the country cannot bank on vaccination efforts alone as a ticket out of the pandemic.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told Sky News this morning that the UK’s infection rate must go down “well in advance of the benefit of the vaccination programme”.
“We still, for the last few weeks now, have seen growing incidences of infection in our communities.”
Mortimer added: “We’ve struggled as a country to have a test, trace and isolate system that works effectively – it just doesn’t work as well as it does in countries like Australia and various other parts of the world. That has to be fixed.”