London Mayor Sadiq Khan alerted residents the increasing number of fresh coronavirus cases are putting the Capital on track for further restrictions.
London is expected to be placed under tier one of the new coronavirus monitoring system from Wednesday, but Sadiq Khan said the rate of infection has been steadily spiking and could result in the Capital being moved on to tier two, with more stringent isolation measures, within days.
Talking to LBC, he said that he was pleased that working collegially with councils and Public Health England, they want to go as one, and he said that’s why he talks about the average of 90 cases per 100,000.
He said that they were approaching the trigger point and that’s why he’s been upfront and straightforward with Londoners, and because of the indicators he’s seen, over the next few days, they will be going to tier two which is the high tier.
Sadiq Khan also expressed his support for suggestions from Government advisors advocating for a snap circuit break lockdown to quell the coronavirus and he said that would be the most effective way to slow down the spread of the virus and to get a grip with it’s short, two-week circuit breaker across the country.
He added that doing that, not only prevents the spread of the virus but also sidesteps months and months of restrictions in tier one, two or three and that the new tier system categorises areas across England based on the rate of infection they’re experiencing.
Those with fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 residents will be put under tier one, locations with over 100 cases per 100,000 fall under tier two and those with extremely higher infections are on tier three.
According to a document released on Monday, members of SAGE had advised the Government to go for an urgent circuit breaker lockdown to avoid sparking a large epidemic.
Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted Westminster has to be prepared to change direction should the measures assumed so far fail to achieve.
Talking to the BBC, Jeremy Hunt stated that if it turns out that they’re not doing what they need to do to get this under control, then they will have to switch tack.
And he continued that in this pandemic, everything appears to be in a sort of two-week cycle, so infections go up and then two weeks later they see admissions to hospitals go up, two weeks later they see ICU (intensive care unit) admissions go up.
However, the sad fact is that people have to work, unless Boris Johnson wants to pay all their wages, and there’s the matter of protecting as much of the economy as possible, but we also need to beat the virus in the best way possible, so it seems that the Government are in between a rock and a hard place.
It seems that we could all hide away, but when we came out again, the virus would still be here and we would simply be attempting to delay the inevitable. Sweden was gutsy enough to accept this and now they’re seeing some success.
And it seems that our Government are using these lockdowns just like they would a medicine to fight the COVID, and they don’t appear to be working.
London on the brink of a lockdown, will that happen? London makes too much money for them to even consider it – although they might be considering it in the interest of health and well being, rather than being more interested in banknotes.
