The Labour Party has called on the Government not to let England return to the “shambles” seen before the current national lockdown.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said there were 11 days until the lockdown was due to lift on December 2, and no word from Government on what was going to happen next.
She added that there needed to be clarity about what economic support measures will accompany different types of restrictions after the lockdown ends.
Ms Dodds told the Co-operative Party’s local government conference: “It’s extraordinary that the lockdown is due to lift in just 11 days, and we still haven’t heard a peep from Government as to what comes next.
“We need clarity about what economic support package will go alongside different types of restrictions.
Shambles
“We can’t go back to the shambles we had before this lockdown.”
Her comments come after Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham urged the Government not to let “everything loose” in the lead-up to Christmas after it emerged that families could be allowed to meet for up to a week as part of a UK-wide relaxation of coronavirus rules.
Several families could be allowed to join a bubble and to mix between December 22 and 28, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Downing Street insiders have suggested that discussions on what Christmas will look like are still ongoing.
Mr Burnham said that while infection rates were dropping in all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester and other parts of the North West, there needed to be a “steady approach” to stop rates increasing again.
He told BBC Breakfast: “I would also say to the Government, don’t just go towards Christmas and let everything loose.
“What you need to do is keep a steady approach that will keep the numbers going in the way they are currently going in the North West and in Greater Manchester, and that will relieve the pressures on the NHS come January.”
On Friday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said there were “substantial differences” in Covid-19 infection rates across England, with rates having continued to increase in London, the east of England and the South East, but decreasing in the North West and the East Midlands.
Christmas
Former chief government scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport told Times Radio there was “something iconic in people’s minds” about Christmas but that it “doesn’t make sense to have big parties” this year.
“It’s absolutely clear that if you were to stop everything and take the brakes off completely, then infection would start growing again and so the question is what measures will come in after December 2?” he said.
“I’m sure there will need to be continuing measures of some sort.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told a Downing Street briefing on Friday it was still too early to say what contact people will be able to have over the festive period.
Earlier this week, Public Health England said Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) guidance had suggested each day of greater freedom could require five days of tighter measures.
But Professor Calum Semple, from Liverpool University and a member of Sage, said if he had a crystal ball, he would say the North West was going to have a “cracking Christmas”.
He told BBC Breakfast: “What I have seen in Liverpool is that the Tier 3 system was like taking the power off the supertanker so instead it’s just gliding, but the lockdown is putting the brakes on – that’s the big difference.
“So that’s why we can be really confident that the North West is coming out of this earlier, and if I had a crystal ball, I think the North West is going to have a cracking Christmas.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson acknowledged the frustration of people self-isolating due to coronavirus and thanked them for their “incredibly important” actions.
The Prime Minister posted a video update online from Downing Street, where he himself continues to isolate, and joked that he had finally been “put under house arrest”.
“Bear in mind what you are doing is incredibly important because that is how we are going to break the chain of transmission, stop the disease, get the R down as I believe we are doing at the moment and get it under control,” he said.
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