Senior official warns England could go into a second national lockdown

A senior government official warned on Friday evening that England could go into a second national lockdown if cases surge as they are in Spain.

Since national restrictions were lifted in July that R number has risen over 1 which could see more “nationwide measures” bought in.

Another lockdown across England could soon be necessary in order to stop the spread of the virus as local outbreaks can skew the reproduction rate of coronavirus, say senior officials.

A senior government source told The Daily Telegraph, “If it doesn’t get contained it may be that some things that have been open, you need to think about whether measures need to be taken to reverse things.

“The strategy is to manage this through local outbreak management, but if it moves in the direction of Spain, then clearly you can see what’s happening there, and in France, people are making more nationwide measures.”

They added, that a second lockdown across England depends on the “trajectory” of the spread of coronavirus and how quickly local outbreaks can be dealt with.

Spain have reported 142 cases per 100,000 population, which is the fastest growing infection rate in Europe, officials want to avoid this situation.

Another government source told the newspaper, “We’re looking at a pretty bumpy autumn and winter and that’s going to go in the direction of increased cases and increased outbreaks.”

Professor of information theory at the University of Bristol Oliver Johnson, said, “The major concern is that R values of this magnitude do not leave a significant margin before the epidemic starts to grow in size again, and raise the possibility that some re-openings may need to be reversed to allow schools to open safely.”

Professor Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the government’s advisory group SAGE, was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if the UK would never see another wide-spread lockdown.

Sir Mark said, “Never is a very strong word. The whole point is to improve the local control, increase the amount of testing, give guidance to avoid that happening. 

“But is there a situation where it could get out of control? Well obviously, that’s possible.”