Millions of people may be forced to live with draconian tier 4 coronavirus restrictions until Easter after Downing Street refused to rule out months of curbs.
More than 16 million people in England are currently banned from household mixing and travel into other areas following Boris Johnson’s decision to impose fresh regulations from Sunday.
With a new variant of Covid-19 blamed for a rapid rise in the spread of the virus in London and large parts of the south-east, government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson said on Monday that tier 4 could have to stay in place until the spring.
Asked directly about Ferguson’s remarks, the prime minister’s spokesperson said: “We will obviously continue to keep the latest scientific data and transmission rate of the virus under review.”
“We obviously won’t keep these rules in place any longer than necessary.I would stress the important thing is for people to follow the rules, that’s the way we can reduce the transmission rate and reduce the R rate.”
Tier 4 is effectively another “lockdown” for residents who live there, with hairdressers, gyms and non-essential shops all closed.
Imperial College London epidemiologist Ferguson – who still sits on the NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group) and SPI-M scientific committees that advise the government – suggested the harshest lockdown measures may take a long time to remove.
“The tiers are reviewed every two weeks and will continue to be reviewed. But I certainly agree it’s not looking optimistic right now,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“The government gets criticised for changing policy all the time. This virus is unpredictable, how people behave is unpredictable, so we will track the epidemic as we always have done. Policy will be formed on the basis of that.
“The faster we can get the vaccine into people’s arms, the quicker we’ll be able to, not go back completely to normal, but at least to be able to relax restrictions.”
With the UK’s vaccine programme set to take until the end of March to fully protect the most vulnerable, some in government believe that it may not be possible to ease the restrictions until the elderly and most at-risk groups have had the jab.
Health secretary Matt Hancock this weekend suggested other areas of the country could be plunged into the toughest restrictions if there was a surge in the new variant as in the south east.
Another member of the NERVTAG committee, Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London, told TimesRadio: “It’s very unlikely anything less than really effective measures are going to control it.
“My concern is people are not going to comply. It’s really important people appreciate the danger.”