Boris Johnson’s speech: Internet users try to find humour in the doom-laden coronavirus address

Twitter has reacted to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s latest set of coronavirus restrictions after they were unveiled in tonight’s speech.  

Boris Johnson warned Britons they faced a long hard winter of police-enforced curbs on their freedom to see off coronavirus, saying the alternative was ‘many more families losing loved ones before their time’.

It caused some to joke ‘winter is coming’ in funny jibes at the Government’s handling of the pandemic. 

In a televised address to the nation the Prime Minister, flanked by a Union Jack, said he was ‘deeply, spiritually reluctant’ to make new ‘impositions, or infringe anyone’s freedom’ after unveiling new measures in Parliament today.

Social media users took the opportunity to mock Mr Johnson with posts that included pasting his face on an anime cartoon character and submerging the prime minister in a muddy puddle. 

One user said: ‘Genuinely think bojo is gonna pounce out my tv with that fist movement.’ 

Others complained they had to wait for the end of the address before they could watch the Great British Bake Off. 

Some posted pictures of their pets watching the TV. One cat seemed engrossed while a dog seemed to be confused as it looked around towards its owner. 

Speaking from Downing Street tonight Mr Johnson warned that ‘iron laws of geometrical progression are shouting at us from the graphs that we risk many more deaths, many more families losing loved ones before their time’.

And he hit out at his critics – including Tory MPs and business leaders who warned of the economic impact of what he is doing, adding: ‘To those who say we don’t need this stuff, and we should leave people to take their own risks, I say these risks are not our own.

‘The tragic reality of having Covid is that your mild cough can be someone else’s death knell.

‘And as for the suggestion that we should simply lock up the elderly and the vulnerable – with all the suffering that would entail – I must tell you that this is just not realistic.

‘Because if you let the virus rip through the rest of the population it would inevitably find its way through to the elderly as well, and in much greater numbers.’

The PM has already warned that the new curbs could last well into 2021, and tonight he warned it could take until then to get mass testing up and running fully and a new vaccine widely available.

He said: ‘Though our doctors and our medical advisers are rightly worried about the data now, and the risks over winter, they are unanimous that things will be far better by the spring, when we have not only the hope of a vaccine, but one day soon – and I must stress that we are not there yet – of mass testing so efficient that people will be able to be tested in minutes so they can do more of the things they love.

‘That’s the hope; that’s the dream. It’s hard, but it’s attainable, and we are working as hard as we can to get there.’

He continued: ‘Never in our history has our collective destiny and our collective health depended so completely on our individual behaviour. 

‘If we follow these simple rules together, we will get through this winter together. There are unquestionably difficult months to come. And the fight against Covid is by no means over.

‘I have no doubt, however, that there are great days ahead. But now is the time for us all to summon the discipline, and the resolve, and the spirit of togetherness that will carry us through.’

Earlier today he faced barbs for introducing other swingeing new measures including a 10pm pub curfew and £200 fines for mask rule-breakers among new restrictions on social settings in England in the face of a surge of new coronavirus infections sweeping the country. 

However ministers have yet to reveal the full guidance for the public on the measures that are to be put in place.  

Mr Johnson warned that that the curbs may have to be left in place for six months, potentially ruining families Christmases and New Year celebrations, and taking the total time spent under coronavirus restrictions of some kind up to a calendar year. 

The 10pm curfew on the hospitality sector sparked an immediate industry backlash as the UKHospitality group said it was ‘another crushing blow’ 

Chief executive Kate Nicholls said: ‘It is hard to understand how these measures are the solution to fighting the disease when Government data shows that just five per cent of infections out of the home are related to hospitality.’

At the same time Tory MPs warned there must not be another ‘major lockdown’.  They said the decision to ditch the back to work drive will cause widespread ‘dismay’ among workers who live in ‘cramped, overcrowded accommodation’.

They also warned their constituents would be furious at the new crackdown after they followed the Government’s rules only to have seen ‘people at protests, at street parties, not having action taken against them’. 

Meanwhile Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned Mr Johnson that his actions did not go far enough as she banned her countrymen from visiting each other in their own homes in a bid to slash to Covid-19 R rate in Scotland.  

Mr Johnson said the UK is at a ‘perilous turning point’ in the fight against the virus. He imposed a 10pm curfew on all restaurants, bars and pubs across England from Thursday with the hospitality sector also being restricted to table service only.

A requirement to wear face coverings will be extended to include retail workers and customers in indoor hospitality settings, except for when they are seated at a table to eat or drink. 

He also announced the end of the Government’s back to work drive as he said he is now ‘asking office workers who can work from home to do so’. 

The Government has been actively encouraging workers to ditch working from home and today’s U-turn represents a humiliating climbdown for the PM who earlier this month had told his Cabinet that ‘people are going back to the office in huge numbers across our country and quite right too’.  

The decision to urge workers to work from home sparked dire warnings about the future of struggling town and city centres as business groups immediately demanded the Government extend its furlough scheme which is due to close at the end of October.   

Mel Stride, the Tory chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, told the PM that lockdowns ‘destroy jobs and also personal wellbeing’ as he urged the Government to pay attention to the concerns of businesses.

He said: ‘The fact the lockdowns have damaged our national economy means that in the years ahead a smaller economy will probably have serious impacts on the health of millions of people up and down our country.’

He added: ‘Yes, we should listen very carefully to the epidemiologists but we must also listen very carefully to the Treasury, to businesses and to economists too.’ 

Mr Johnson today announced he is making the Army available to help the police enforce stringent new coronavirus rules. The Prime Minister said the police will now have the ‘option to draw on military support where required’ to free up officers so more can go out and crackdown on rule-breakers as he revealed fines are being doubled to £200. 

Downing Street ruled out deploying soldiers on the streets however, saying they would be used ‘backfilling certain duties, such as office roles and guarding protected sites, so police officers can be out enforcing the virus response’. 

The PM also said that if the new plans fail to get the disease under control he ‘reserves the right to deploy greater fire power’.    

Plans for a partial return of sports fans to stadiums from October 1 have also been ‘paused’ while the number of people allowed to attend weddings is being reduced to 15 from Monday. Exemptions to the rule of six are also being reduced, banning indoor team sport such as five-a-side football matches. 

Mr Johnson did not announce a ban on households mixing indoors in England but Nicola Sturgeon this afternoon followed Northern Ireland as she said that from tomorrow Scots will not be able to meet in other people’s homes, prompting questions over which of the home nations has adopted the correct approach.  

Some experts have already warned the PM’s curfew does not go far enough after Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said yesterday the UK could hit 50,000 cases a day by mid-October and 200 plus daily deaths by November unless Britain changes course. 

Calum Semple, a professor of Child Health and Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool and a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said there are ‘several sectors of society which will need to increase their restrictions unfortunately’.  

It was claimed overnight that Mr Johnson had initially backed a total shutdown of the hospitality and leisure sectors before Chancellor Rishi Sunak persuaded him to take a less severe course after warning of economic carnage. 

Setting out his proposals to MPs in the House of Commons this lunchtime, Mr Johnson said the UK is at a ‘perilous turning point’ amid a surge in infections across the country. 

He said: ‘This is the moment when we must act. 

‘If we can curb the number of daily infections and reduce the reproduction rate to one then we can save lives, protect the NHS and the most vulnerable and shelter the economy from the far sterner and more costly measures that would inevitably become necessary later on.’ 

Mr Gove confirmed the shift on working from home this morning, telling Sky News: ‘There is going to be a shift in emphasis and one of the things that we are going to emphasise is if it is possible for people to work from home then we would encourage them to do so.

‘Now, it is important to stress there are many, many, many roles which can’t be performed from home.

‘There are people in manufacturing, in construction, in retail and in other roles where we recognise that is simply impossible and that is why we have worked to make sure you can have Covid-secure workplaces and we need to balance, obviously, the need to ensure that people can continue to work and indeed critically continue to go to school and to benefit from education against taking steps to try to reduce the virus which is why we can limit or appropriately restrain social contact, that is what we are trying to do.’ 

He also said plans for a partial return of sports fans to stadiums from October 1 have been ‘paused’.  

‘It is the case that we’ve been piloting some open air venues, and we do want to be able in due course to allow people to return to watch football and other sporting events,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

‘But it is the case that we just need to be cautious at the moment and I think a mass reopening at this stage wouldn’t be appropriate.’

He added: ‘It was the case that we were looking at a staged programme of more people returning – it wasn’t going to be the case that we were going to have stadiums thronged with fans.

‘We’re looking at how we can, for the moment, pause that programme. But what we do want to do is to make sure that as and when circumstances allow, (we) get more people back.’

Mr Gove was unable to say how long the Government’s new coronavirus measures are expected to last. 

‘What we hope is we can take appropriate steps now, which mean that if we succeed in beating back the virus, then we will in the future be able to progressively relax them,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

‘But what I can’t do is predict with absolute certainty.’ 

Pressed on whether it would be months or weeks, Mr Gove said: ‘It is the case, as Professor Vallance and Chris Whitty pointed out yesterday, that we’re going to have a challenging next six months.’

Mr Gove insisted the Government was taking ‘reluctant steps’ with the new coronavirus measures, but added that they are ‘absolutely necessary’.

‘There will be more details that the Prime Minister will spell out, and again, one of the points that he’ll make is that no one wants to do these things, no one wants to take these steps,’ he told Sky News.

‘They are reluctant steps that we’re taking, but they are absolutely necessary.

‘Because as we were reminded yesterday, and as you’ve been reporting, the rate of infection is increasing, the number of people going to hospital is increasing, and therefore we need to act.’

He insisted there is evidence to support the Government’s decision to set the curfew on pubs and restaurants at 10pm. 

He told the BBC: ‘There is evidence that the longer venues stay open, the greater degree of social mixing that takes place.

‘So, placing a restriction like this is something that we’ve already done in parts of the country where the virus has been spreading particularly fast.’