Britain hasn’t learnt from March and is about to make another ‘mistake’, SAGE members warn

Britain hasn’t learnt its lesson from the first wave of coronavirus and is on the brink of making another ‘mistake’, one of the Government’s scientific advisers warned today amid claims tougher action is needed to control the outbreak.

And another member of Number 10’s advice panel SAGE fears Boris Johnson’s 10pm curfew on pubs, bars and restaurants will not be ‘anything like enough’ to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Professor John Edmunds warned action was not taken quickly enough back in March and that ‘mistake’ is about to be repeated. He said not controlling the spiralling cases now will mean ‘putting the brakes on the epidemic for a very long time’.

The epidemiologist, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that was what ministers had to do in March ‘because we didn’t react quick enough’, adding: ‘So I think that we haven’t learned from our mistake back then and we’re unfortunately about to repeat it.’

And Professor Robert West, a health psychologist at University College London and member of SAGE, added: ‘Closing early will have some impact but I don’t think it will be anything like enough, even with the other measures announced, to stop the increase.’

The 10pm curfew — enforced in England, Scotland and Wales but not yet announced in Northern Ireland — was neither recommended or modelled by Downing Street’s advisory panel, it was also reported today.

Scientists are divided over the raft of new measures to be introduced on Thursday, which differ across each of the home nations.

Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, is understood to believe the restrictions do not go far enough, and has sided with Scotland in saying people should not be allowed to socialise in other people’s homes.

Some scientists have praised No 10 for ensuring people will get ‘less drunk’, leaving them ‘more able’ to observe social distancing. But pub bosses have decried the curfew as ‘impossible’ to enforce and warned it could drop the axe on many businesses that are ‘just treading water’.

But this morning Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defended the policy, claiming it will ‘preserve the health gains we’ve made’ and ‘protect businesses and livelihoods’ while stopping the ‘exponential’ growth of the virus. 

Professor Edmunds accused the Government of failing to heed the warnings from March on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Speaking in a personal capacity, he said the authorities will let cases of coronavirus ‘double and double and double again’ before taking the right steps, but by then it will be ‘too late’. 

‘And then we’ll have the worst of both worlds, because then to slow the epidemic and bring it back down again, all the way down to somewhere close to where it is now or where it was in the summer, will mean putting the brakes on the epidemic for a very long time, very hard,’ he said.

‘(This) is what we had to do in March because we didn’t react quickly enough in March, and so I think that we haven’t learnt from our mistake back then and we’re unfortunately about to repeat it.

‘I suspect we will see very stringent measures coming in place throughout the UK at some point, but it will be too late again.’

Adding to the sense of alarm among epidemiologists, Professor West told The Times: ‘Closing early will have some impact but I don’t think it will be anything like enough, even with the other measures announced, to stop the increase.’

He said there is a ‘drinking equilibrium’ where people have the ‘amount they want to drink’, and that through an early closure ‘you might have some decrease but it won’t be proportionate to the reduction in hours’.

But scientists remain divided on the issue, with others arguing the restrictions will limit the spread of the virus. 

Dr Jennifer Cole, biological anthropologist at Royal Holloway University, said yesterday that one of the biggest influences over people observing social distancing, and hence controlling the spread of the virus, was alcohol.

‘The more drunk you are, the less inhibited and less risk-averse you are,’ she said.

‘Closing the bars and restaurants at 10pm simply keeps people more sober. It gives them plenty of time for a meal, or a quick drink with friends after work, but means they are likely to be sober enough to remember to put on a face-covering on the train or bus home, and to be careful around elderly relatives when they get home.

‘It gives restaurant and bar staff time to give the venue a thorough clean when the last customers have left, without having to work unreasonably late. This means that a lot of the risk is reduced.’ 

Professor Whitty is understood to support Scotland’s move to limit social interactions in household, and believe that England should have followed in its tracks, reports The Times.

Jonathan Van Tam and Jenny Harries, Professor Whitty’s deputies, are also understood to have expressed concerns that the measures did not go far enough.

Boris Johnson told the nation last night that unless his warnings were listened to and measures were followed there would be further restrictions on the cards.

‘The virus is no less fatal than it was in Spring,’ he told the public, ‘and our best weapon against it is commonsense and community.’

Announcing a wave of new restrictions, he said pubs, bars and restaurants would have to close at 10pm every night and switch to table service only, slashed the numbers able to attend weddings to 15, suspended plans for stadiums to return and banned indoor team sports.

It comes on top of the rule of six, which has been in force for more than a week, which has stopped people meeting in large groups.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon went further by banning people from visiting others homes, unless they lived alone.

She claimed advice from Scotland’s chief medical officer and national clinical director was that the Prime Minister’s package ‘on its own will not be sufficient to bring the R number down’.

She added: ‘We must take account of the fact that household interaction is a key driver of transmission.’

The rules will be closely monitored for the next two weeks to see whether further action needs to be taken. 

Local areas in England with larger outbreaks have imposed tighter restrictions, including stopping households from mixing.

Public Health England data reveals that of the 729 outbreaks in the week to September 13, only five per cent occurred in food outlets such as restaurants and pubs – 45 per cent were in care homes, 21 per cent in schools and 18 per cent in places of work.

Hospitality bosses accused ministers of unfairly singling them out for restrictions yesterday, and warned a curfew will lead to a boom in illegal house parties where the virus is more likely to spread.

Wetherspoons founder Tim Martin said: ‘The curfew doesn’t even stand up to five minutes consideration by an intelligent person because if you look at the stats… there are relatively few transfers of infections in pubs.’

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UK Hospitality, urged the Government to heed its own statistics because the curfew could take a sledgehammer to the industry which is already ‘on its knees’.

She said: ‘People will think it’s not that significant, but it really will have a big economic impact on jobs, not just on pubs, but also for cafes and restaurants.’

Yesterday the UK recorded 4,926 new cases, the highest number since May 8, as the second outbreak continues to gather pace.