A senior government scientific advisor has warned on Thursday that England needs an immediate “circuit breaker” lockdown, which will avoid many deaths and hospital admissions.
Professor John Edmunds who is a member of SAGE which advises the Cabinet warned, “I would rather we did it right now, and we took the pain right now.”
Professor Edmunds told Royal Society of Medicine webinar on Thursday, “I would put the circuit breakers in as fast as we can.
“We should be working from home. We should be taking other measures to reduce our contacts over the winter.”
It is vital that the circuit breaker is required as it will “stop the epidemic from getting out of control in the next few weeks or months and overwhelming the health service.
He said that it is “unquestionably” that the government’s delay to the first national lockdown led to many deaths that could have been averted.
He warned the government, “That is unquestionably the primary reason why we had so many deaths, unfortunately.
“I think we need to take action rapidly to avoid making the same mistake.
“I really want the government to act decisively now, rather than waiting and being bounced into acting sometime later.”
Professor Edmunds told government Ministers they need to take interventions more seriously.
He warned, “If we let the thing get out of hand now, then we will have a lot of cases. That unfortunately means a lot of deaths.
“I think we will have a difficult time over Christmas with the virus, and high rates.”
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