Boris Johnson Is Right About Covid Circuit Breaker
Short-term lockdowns may help reduce transmission and pressure on hospitals, but there’s no evidence they will stop the virus spreading.
Too late.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images EuropeManchester was in full revolt this week after Boris Johnson’s government tried to move the northern English city to the strictest “Tier 3” Covid-19 restrictions, closing pubs and banning households from meeting even in private gardens. Mayor Andy Burnham lashed out at ministers for treating those in the region as “sacrificial lambs” and derided Johnson’s lockdown strategy as “experimental.”
Burnham has a point: The new measures are indeed experimental. There’s no evidence that regional lockdowns will work; they haven’t so far. As for “sacrificial,” he may also be right. The regional pandemic strategy exists so that Johnson doesn’t have to announce blanket measures for the whole country. That isn’t a good look for a government that promised to rebalance the country’s economy away from the privileged south.