Christmas ‘could be saved’ if we lockdown now, scientists say

Enforcing a national lockdown now could ‘save Christmas from coronavirus’ and allow families to get together over the festive season, according to experts.

Scientists say a stringent country-wide ‘circuit breaker’ lasting between two and six weeks would help suppress cases by late December.

Documents from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) released on Friday showed Covid-19 was spreading significantly faster through England than the Government’s own predicted worst-case scenario for cases and hospital admissions.

Sage had estimated 85,000 deaths from coronavius over the course of the winter, but an official document dated October 14 and published today reveals we are in a worse position than expected.

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The grim report came as official figures found more than half a million people per week are becoming infected with coronavirus across the country.

Despite the bleak numbers, senior SAGE sources told MailOnline it was still ‘not too late to save Christmas’ if a month-long lockdown was introduced immediately.

The advisory group is said to be in favour of a similar lockdown to the one imposed today in France, where residents can only leave home for one hour a day to exercise and all non-essential businesses, including bars and restaurants, must shut for a month, but schools can stay open.

Although the Government has not ruled out a national lockdown they have resisted calls to ‘act now’, instead insisting there is evidence to suggest the regional approach is working.

But some experts say the tiered system does not go far enough, especially if ministers want to fullfill promises of allowing family get to-gethers at Christmas. 

Dr Mike Tildesley, an epidemiologist from the University of Warwick who helped produce a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ for the modelling sub-group of Sage, said tighter measures were needed ‘sooner rather than later’.

He told the Guardian: ‘As epidemiologists we need to think about the impact on public health and that’s really key, but I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that the general public has had a pretty rotten year [but] I don’t think any of the science group would advocate that we should remove all restrictions at Christmas – it’s clear that that’s not possible.

‘But speaking on behalf of myself, what I would like to see is that we are in a position to do a minor relaxation, for example allowing slightly larger family groups to be together, maybe having the rule of 10 or 12 instead of six.

‘To do that we have to do something like a circuit break or something on a more national scale to bring incidents down … sooner rather than later.’

Dr Julian Tang, a consultant virologist at Leicester Royal Infirmary, also said six weeks of restrictions now could allow for a minor relaxation of rules over Christmas without doing too much damage.

Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have all introduced their own forms of short national lockdowns, with scientists in the devolved regions saying the measure is working and England should follow suit.

Sage proposed a national circuit breaker for the October half-term as early as 16 September. Opinion polls suggested the majority of the public would have supported the move, but the advice was ignored by ministers.

Scientific advisers at the top of Government believe it is now too late for a two-week national circuit-breaker to have enough of an effect and a longer national lockdown is needed to drive the reproduction number, or R value, of the virus below one.

Scientists crunching the numbers estimated that by mid-October there were between 43,000 and 74,000 people being infected with coronavirus every day in England.

Their report said: ‘This is significantly above the profile of the reasonable worst-case scenario, where the number of daily infections in England remained between 12,000-13,000 throughout October.’

It added: ‘We are breaching the number of infections and hospital admissions in the Reasonable Worst Case (RWC) planning scenario.

‘The number of deaths is now in line with the levels in the RWC and is almost certain to exceed this within the next two weeks.’

It is thought that all parts of England are on course to eventually end up in tier three restrictions, while deaths could potentially hit 500 per day within weeks.

Despite the grim outlook, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab suggested the Government was still ploughing ahead with its regional approach.

He said the Government is ‘striving’ to avoid issuing blanket restrictions nationwide as he insisted targeted measures could slow the growth in cases.

But he did hint that tougher measures could be introduced amid reports officials are drawing up plans to close restaurants and non-essential shops in parts of England with the highest infection rates.

Asked whether a new tier 4 was being considered, Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday: ‘We’re always ready for further measures that we can take. But I think the most important thing about further measures is that we continue on the track we’re on of targeting the virus.’

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