Spotlight: Second national lockdown to be imposed in England as UK confirmed cases top 1 million

Source: Xinhua| 2020-11-01 04:39:00|Editor: huaxia

LONDON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister announced Saturday that England will go into a month-long lockdown next week as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Britain surpassed the 1 million mark.

Under the new measures, which will be effective from Thursday until Dec. 2, people in England will only be allowed to leave their homes for specific reasons, such as education, work or food shopping, said Johnson.

Pubs, bars and restaurants will close across the country except for takeaways and non-essential shops, hairdressers and leisure and entertainment venues will also be shut, among other restrictions.

The toughest restrictions in England will be the second of its kind since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Liverpool-based academic, Professor John Ashton, a global public health expert, said that a nationwide lockdown was urgently needed to curb the surge of coronavirus in the country.

"The only answer is to have a national lockdown. We need to regain control, just like they did in Wuhan, and across China," Ashton told Xinhua, referring to the Chinese government's decisive restrictions to curb the spread of the virus in the city in central China.

LOCAL LOCKDOWNS INSUFFICIENT?

Ashton's home city of Liverpool was the first in England to be placed in a Tier Three localized lockdown, the toughest of the three-level government decreed restrictions.

Since then large parts of England have followed Liverpool into tough restrictions which has seen the closure of bars and gyms, and restrictions on people meeting indoors and outdoors.

Figures released Friday showed the total number of confirmed cases in Liverpool in the last seven days was 2,044, a decrease of 739 on the previous week. However, the infection rate remained high at 410.4 per 100,000 population, said a city hall spokeswoman.

Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson told Xinhua: "Make no mistake, this is an extremely worrying time for everyone in Liverpool. Whether it is those whose loved ones are ill or have passed away, NHS (National Health Service) staff who are tired and exhausted, or businesses that are teetering on the edge."

"We are truly grateful to local people and businesses who are making huge sacrifices to help bring cases down and bring the virus back under control. Liverpool is a city that supports each other in times of crisis and that is what we are doing now," Anderson said.

However, the mayor acknowledged that it remains to be seen whether Tier Three restrictions are sufficient to bring the situation under control.

"We're continuing to look at the data and talking to the government about what comes next... It will take some time before we know if we have truly turned a corner," he added.

CALLS FOR FURTHER RESTRICTIONS

Ashton, who has worked on a number of major international projects for the World Health Organisation (WHO), recently published a book on the virus situation in the first half of 2020.

He plans to submit his book as evidence to a planned official inquiry in Britain into the country's handling of the epidemic. The book, Blinded by Corona, How the Pandemic Ruined Britain's Health and Wealth, charts the political, academic debate as well as health service reactions to COVID-19.

"We are in the position of having over a million diagnosed cases in Britain because of a litany of what has gone wrong with Public Health in the country," he said.

Earlier this year, Britain experienced what Ashton described as a "lost month" when the British government did very little during February and March to ready Britain for the arrival of the virus.

Numbers, and deaths, in Britain started to fall during an initial nationwide lockdown, but the controls were eased with dire consequences, according to Ashton.

"The lifting of the first lockdown controls saw the government encouraging people to go out, eat, drink and be merry, and get back to work," he said. "It was guaranteed to trigger another escalation of the virus."

Case numbers started to escalate, mainly in highly populated areas of Northern England, with Johnson responding with localized measures.

The expert said the virus is growing quickly first from the northern areas and then across the country and the only answer is to have a national lockdown lasting three to six weeks.

Ashton called for more stringent measures like people wearing masks outdoors as well as in buildings, specially in busy streets.

He has also called for the battle to be place in the hands of 130 local public health departments in towns and cities.

When an expected national lockdown is eventually eased, those local teams would be pivotal in the fight to keep the virus at bay, or under control, he said.

DAUNTING CHALLENGES AHEAD

Another internationally renowned political and security expert, Professor Anthony Glees from the University of Buckingham, said that he agrees that a national lockdown is needed in Britain to ensure the risk is kept to a minimum.

"It should be introduced as soon as possible. Indeed, it should already have been introduced," Glees told Xinhua, adding that an effective IT-based track and trace system must also be developed.

Glees, who is penning a book on the security aspects of the pandemic, said the West is finding it increasingly difficult to manage the COVID-19 epidemic, unlike in China and other parts of Asia.

"Latest polls show that only 32 percent of voters believe the UK government is managing the crisis well. It is worth noting that in late March 70 percent of UK voters believed their government was managing the crisis well."

"It prompts the obvious question why," said Glees.

The expert noted that too little is still known about the virus and whether it has changed in some way in its journey from East to West, or whether there are differences of management and practice in China, Japan and Singapore that may explain, at least in part, varying outcomes.

"For the UK, given the huge economic upheaval of Brexit and the real possibility of shortages of food, medicines and increasingly job losses, the spectre of serious civil disorder must be real and frightening to government."

Glees said that already large numbers of people, especially young people, have lost interest in abiding by the laws and regulations that have been passed to try to contain the spread of the virus.

"From a security point of view, it is imperative for Western governments to demonstrate that they can get a grip on the management of the virus until a vaccine can be found both to protect citizens," he said. Enditem

KEY WORDS:
EXPLORE XINHUANET
010020070750000000000000011100001394818621