LONDON (Labour Buzz) - Labour leader Keir Starmer has called for a circuit breaker lockdown of two to three weeks to bring the virus under control. Unless the Prime Minister acted now, he warned, the country risked ‘sleepwalking into a long and bleak winter’.
Starmer’s call comes after documents revealed his scientific advisers had called for short, limited restrictions in order to bring down the R number and get the virus under control.
Instead, the Government opted for a more limited set of restrictions including the much-maligned 10 pm curfew. To this date, neither the government nor its scientific advisers have been able to provide any evidence explaining the decision.
According to the documents, Sage warned that a pack of stringent interventions is urgently needed to avoid a ‘large epidemic with catastrophic consequences’.
Starmer’s recommendations would involve a short period of national restrictions designed to bring down the R rate. Non-essential businesses including pubs and restaurants would have to close. However, they would be compensated for their lost business.
Schools, he said, would not need to close, but if the government acts imminently the restrictions could be timed to run over the half-term holiday minimising disruption. Parliament would switch to remote working.
According to SAGE, these restrictions could set the pandemic back by 28 days or more. The more quickly interventions are put in place, the faster deaths would be reduced.
“There are more people in hospital with COVID than on the 23rd of March when we went into lockdown and while its rising faster in some areas it’s rising in all areas,” Starmer warned, adding that the “government has not got a credible plan to slow infection. It has lost control of the virus.”
Starmer’s press conference represents his sternest rebuke yet of the Prime Minister. There was ‘no longer time,’ he said, to keep giving the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt.”
Speaking directly to Johnson he said: “You know the scientific evidence backs this approach. You know the restrictions you introduced won’t be enough. You know a circuit breaker is needed now to get this virus under control. You can’t keep delaying it and come back to the house of commons with another plan which won’t work. If you do you will have the votes in parliament.”
(Written by Tom Cropper, Edited by Klaudia Fior)