[Music]
a
call to arms a murderous second wave is
underway and so time for a stringent
national lockdown
[Music]
clear echoes of france's first wave as
travel restrictions return
but there are differences this one will
initially last for five weeks
and schools and essential workplaces
will remain
open some of the toughest measures in
europe as
germany for long a model in handling the
virus
also announced a dramatic tightening of
restrictions
this is foreign
the new measures by such close neighbors
will intensify pressure on boris johnson
to toughen restrictions on this side of
the channel
the uk is after all projected to be a
few weeks behind
france and the scientific advisory group
for emergencies
is warning that the second wave could
last longer than the first
in the spring the uk daily death rate
quickly shot up to just over one
thousand a day
before slowly coming down since
september
deaths have been on the up again and now
scientists fear
they will rise to 500 a day by
mid-november
the numbers could then plateau
we're already seeing a steady increase
in infections hospitalizations and
deaths
but at a far slower rate than we saw in
march maybe doubling every two to three
weeks
but it is going carrying on in spite of
the measures that have taken place
so this is going to carry on increasing
um it's quite plausible they will carry
on really throughout the winter i i
i think it's going to look much more
like a a bad flu season which is spread
over the whole of the winter
rather than being enormously packed in
like the first wave of this epidemic
a significant moment for boris johnson
as his own scientists warn of the
potency of the second wave
and political pressure too after the
eu's two
mighty powers introduce nationwide
measures
downing street is watching developments
across the channel with care
but for now the prime minister believes
that targeted regional restrictions
are the best approach over here
we need to look carefully what other
nations are doing but recognizing that
this government is up against it
once again but we need to learn lessons
from that first time around
understand that there may be a circuit
breaker or another lockdown
but actually we're keeping more people
alive at the moment there's medicines
available
we're all more disciplined in what we're
doing and what i'd like to see
is not an exit strategy as such that
won't come until we have a vaccine
what we need is a plan for six months
we're going to have a tough winter
there's no doubt about it
we need a plan to take us to march that
must include
keeping the economy alive looking at
clever ways
of allowing us to go about our business
labor believes the new restrictions on
the continent
highlight weaknesses in number 10's
covered response
i think again it shows that boris
johnson is behind the coronavirus curve
he should have used this half term for a
short time limited circuit break here
in the united kingdom in england to get
on top of the virus
to save lives to stop the nhs being
overwhelmed and
the fear now is that because he's
differing because he's delaying
that he'll be forced into a longer
deeper lockdown
uh later next month for or in december
again it's because boris johnson like in
the spring
has been too slow to act an eerie
silence befell the city of lights
in the first lockdown and now a return
to those dark days
nick what well i'm joined now by robert
west the professor of health psychology
at university college london who's also
a member of the behavioral science
subgroup of sage sbib and claire wenham
assistant professor of global health
policy at the london school of economics
good evening to you both
first of all professor west in july
boris johnson said
is my strong sincere hope we'll be able
to review outstanding restrictions
and have a significant return to
normality end of november possibly in
time for christmas
it's not going to happen is it i'm
afraid it isn't um
and unfortunately this was foreseen
um you know when the restrictions were
eased
um you know people were saying they were
eased too
soon and too much at one time and then
as things started to get worse and we
needed to act much more quickly
than we have done so in the beginning
let's look at the first way we were told
that we to protect the nhs but actually
became the covert nhs and as we now know
cancer operations were cancelled cancer
deaths rose
we've heard tonight that greater
manchester is again cancelling
cancer operations so is it time for more
explicit
message if you do not adhere everybody
knows someone with cancer in a family
there will be more cancer deaths if you
do not adhere i mean this is the thing
um what we're seeing from the evidence
is that people
are adhering um to what they're being
told to do the problem isn't so much the
adherence to the rules
the problem is the rules um and the fact
that the explicit nature is it not time
to be more explicit in that message
about cancer
well i think it's very important to
understand that you know the nhs
um was not protected last time you know
it was absolutely catastrophic for the
nhs
and it will be again there's no question
about that
um but you know independent sage
now sage has said you know that it
really
isn't acceptable to have a continuing
rise in
infection rates because you know we will
see more hospitalizations and deaths
and the nhs of course uh will suffer as
a consequence
and frankly in the midst of deep winter
might not be able to cope i mean it was
seen as a triumph that we weren't using
the nightingale hospitals
but actually that's not necessarily a
triumph for other kinds of illnesses as
well
no i mean you know we we will see we've
already seen
um that there were substantial excess
deaths not directly caused by kovid and
there will be more to come
claire wenham why do you think people
are often not adhering to the measures
is it the fact that they're
not scared or they're too scared of
they've got competing
scarednesses for example you know
they're they're scared of covered
on the one hand they're scared of a
lockdown in the other they're scared
financially i think it's a mix of all
those things i think some people
are fed up of being where we are and fed
up of
of being in this kind of quasi state
that we've been in for the last few
months i think others simply can't
afford to go into
to isolate we've seen a lot of data
coming out showing people who aren't
able to abide by these um
isolation requests because they have to
go out to work and i think also we've
got
we've had a government who's been uh you
know encouraging people to go out over
the summer let's not forget that the
government were encouraging people to go
out and you know eat out and go back to
work
and trying to get people to socialize
again and so there's really some mixed
messages coming that people are trying
to have to
you know grapple with at the moment but
now and today we've got this stubbornly
high number in the early 300s expected
to rise
to about 500 in daily deaths
now is the time surely to have trust
between the government and the public
and why do
does the public not trust the government
well i think there's been some some
challenges in the risk communication
across the course of this pandemic i
think that you know
johnson's um message at the beginning of
this it would be out of this by
christmas was unrealistic and i think he
needed to prepare people better
for actually this is going to be a be a
long time tour out of this
and you know nobody wants that answer
it's not a
political astute or savvy thing to say
it's not going to it's not gonna win you
uh you know a crowd but that's the
reality and i think we now need to get
that messaging right to prepare people
for what's gonna be a long winter
potentially a long 2021
and also prepare people for the fact
that the the vaccine isn't necessarily
the silver bullet
and you know as soon as we get a vaccine
it's going to take time
to distribute it to roll it out and so i
think we need to really
focus in on how the government is
communicating
what the reality of the next few months
and years might look like
what is the reality robert west of the
next few months is the reality
to follow france and germany into a
national lockdown
yes i think that um uh it would be
remarkable if the government sort of
held out
and unfortunately the longer it leaves
it uh the longer the lockdown will have
to be and the more people
will die ahead of that uh and you know
it's really painful
um but the other thing i may say the
government and this and
you're the one that's saying look get
into that lockdown
now yeah well you know
scientists advise governments decide but
the other thing that's
really important to say about this is
that the test
trace and isolate system has to be up to
standard and it isn't
and that's been the really catastrophic
failure over the summer and since then
is is not getting that system in place
because lockdowns
don't work by themselves they just buy
you time it's interesting
as a behavioral psychologist looking at
you know we've now got this mixture of
tears you know
and you know proliferation of tears five
in scotland three
four here is your sense that that just
doesn't work all these different tiers
um it's not going to work and the
problem is that
um if you have the infection rate rising
across the country which it is
then you might be in tier one now but
you're going to be in tier two
later and it's much better if you have
the whole country
um in one boat as it were controlling
the infection in the same way so i want
to ask this to both of you
how do you create a new social contract
between the government and people how do
you create a new message about this
i think that the government has to
accept
uh that it's got it wrong um other other
governments have said that you know
you've got to be willing to accept that
you've got things wrong
you've got to be honest with people
you've got to be transparent and you've
got to have
a very clear messaging about what needs
to be done and why it needs to be done
but we understand claire wenham uh
nick what our political editor
understands that the government is not
minded to go into national lockdowns
is that now a mistake i think it's
difficult i mean like nobody wants a
lockdown i don't think anyone in the uk
wants to go into lockdown again because
you know in general but i think the
reality is there's little choice and i
i agree that we know we need to level
with people and tell them that
you know the tier was an opportunity to
demonstrate that we could get this under
control
and the fact that people haven't been
following it the fact that people are
confused about what they're supposed to
be doing
is is simply you know showing us that
there's not really another way than a
national lockdown but is there is
but is there a question that if people
do not feel financially secure
if people do not feel that they can
actually stay at home and feed their
family they'll do
anything to make sure that they can
absolutely and that's why we have to
think about this not purely from the
epidemiological case stage but we've
also got to look at making sure there
are
economic stimulus packages in hand
making sure people have got the
resources in
in place to be able to lock down both as
individuals or
businesses and we have to take a much
more holistic view of what the impact of
a lockdown will be it will
be regressive they always are locked
down
we've seen across the world had
significant social and economic costs
but we have to weigh that up against the
reality of you know
lots and lots more people dying which is
something we can't live with
robert absolutely and that's the third
part of the package so you have the
circuit breaker or the fire break you
have you buy time to give you a decent
test tracing isolate system and you have
good adequate financial support for
people so that they can actually
obey the rules and that's you know those
three things are critical
thank you both very much indeed