We can endure this nightmare only once so Government must time the lifting of the lockdown exactly right
Give us hope
IT is vital we endure this lockdown nightmare only once.
It is gruelling for us all, is costing £2billion a day and wrecking the economy. But it would be an even greater catastrophe to relax it early, suffer a second wave of infections and have to do it all again.
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Aside from the new toll of lost lives, many businesses which limp through one shutdown will not survive a second.
So Dominic Raab’s decision to extend our virtual house arrest for three weeks seems fair while it remains unclear how successfully we are battling Covid-19.
He, and preferably a fit-again Boris Johnson, must time this exactly right. As the Foreign Secretary said, we are at a “delicate and dangerous stage”. But it is vital to review it every day.
If the statistics show clearer progress in, say, another week, the Government must prioritise setting a date for partially reopening schools and some firms.
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Health blunders
YET more depressing evidence of the inept complacency of Public Health England.
“It is very unlikely anyone receiving care in a care home will become infected,” it glibly declared in February.
Why? It was clear the virus posed its greatest threat to old folk. A care home was the perfect place for it to flourish.
We have seen heroic NHS efforts to save lives and expand capacity, not least in the new Nightingale hospitals built with Army help. Britain showed our appreciation again last night at 8pm.
But PHE’s record is woeful. For years it fixated on cutting our sugary treats, only to be blindsided by its first REAL crisis in decades. Even now it seems to be the major roadblock on testing.
Phone vultures
IT is sickening that a grasping phone firm will profit from your final farewell call to a relative dying from coronavirus in hospital.
Hospedia, which also charges patients £9 a day to watch TV, won’t drop their 13p-a-minute fee to ring a bedside phone even after mobile firms scrapped theirs.
It should NEVER be possible to fleece patients or relatives, let alone during this terrible global crisis.
Have a heart, Hospedia. Axe this today.
Gong for Tom
TOM Moore must have thought he’d done his bit for Britain 80 years ago, fighting in Burma. Fate had further plans for him.
Not only has Captain Tom raised £15million for NHS staff, he has united the nation during this new “war”.
He already has medals on his chest.
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