the times | Saturday October 17 2020 2GM 29
Comment
Backing lockdown isn’t proof of caring more
Starmer’s sudden embrace of a national circuit break against Covid ignores the plight of the poor, the elderly and lonely
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benefits of fitness and wellbeing
against the paltry 0.1 drop in the
infection rate from shutting gyms
and pools?
The left needs to acknowledge that
lockdowns have, as David Nabarro of
the World Health Organisation says,
one predictable consequence:
“making poor people an awful lot
poorer”. Not just the Liverpool
families Dame Louise Casey warned
this week would not be able to afford
children’s shoes, but the poorest in
the world: smallholder African
farmers who cannot trade, tourism
workers in the Caribbean.
Dr Nabarro implored western
nations to “not advocate lockdownsas a primary means of control” or
global poverty will double.
Besides, whatever people say in
polls, will they comply with a circuit
break? I doubt even those entering
Tier 2 today will cancel every film
visit or restaurant reservation with
friends. Or that under-30s will not
meet in the pub for limitless months.
As vaccine hopes falter, we will
take ever more calculated risks to
stay sane.
And would a circuit break really
end after a fortnight? An insufficient
fall in infections could be reason to
extend it. But so would a noticeable
decline or a not-quite-fixed track
and trace. Give us just another
week... or so.elderly back into isolation. Age UK
reports an “astonishing” 88 per cent
rise in calls from the lonely. Many in
nursing homes have deteriorated
without longed-for visits. (Now
Doncaster is in high risk, I can’t see
my mother, 97 next week, unless
she’s at “end of life”.) Many will die
without seeing loved ones for
months. Imagine if that were you.
How can old people in Tier 2, facing
winter without friends, bear a locked
down Easter without grandkids too?
At what point does the cost in
collective suffering count for more
than fighting a virus most of us
survive? We don’t know yet if suicide
rates are rising but every daySamaritans receive 600 Covid-
related calls and mental health
charities confirm that many with
pre-existing problems have been sent
into crisis under lockdown, while
Childline was swamped with calls
from children in abusive homes.
In Asia, the circuit break is a
precision tool to shut a city’s night
club sector or a specific
neighbourhood. But Labour proposes
a blunt instrument which ignores the
fact that businesses have created
expensive, clever, Covid-safe
measures. A Liverpool gym owner,
told to close under Tier 3 rules,
points out he’s installed high-tech
ventilation and that his equipment is
well spaced. Can’t we offset thewhich a flailing government has
cruelly ignored.
Yet whenever I’m told to “follow
the science” I think back to when my
son, aged four, slashed his throat in a
freak accident. It missed an artery,
thank God, and a surgeon stitched
up his neck. But his scar quickly
became angry and keloid. So I
returned to the surgeon. “Well, I
could cut it open again,” he said. “It
might heal better next time.”
Horrified, I went upstairs to
physiotherapy who prescribed
daily (painful) massage whichgradually erased it.
I didn’t blame the surgeon. He
addressed the scar as a surgical
problem with a surgical solution.
Likewise, the government’s scientific
advisers look only at the virus and
how to stop it spreading. Other facets
of life are not within their purview
and, like the surgeon, they can’t even
promise their idea works.
So eight months into this
pandemic, let’s stop pretending that
the stricter the lockdown you
advocate, the more you care. Because
we should care about plunging theI
t sounds smart, efficient and ever
so sciencey. The opinion polls, as
Sir Keir Starmer knew, favour a
“circuit break” lockdown. Weary
of multiple-tiered government
advice on how we may only eat with
elderly parents if we drag them into
freezing cold gardens, the publiccraves clarity. A short, sharp shock
instead of this eternal life-sucking
gloom.
“It will just be two weeks or so,”
said the London mayor Sadiq Khan
breezily. Or so? How long is “or so”?
Will “or so” be quantified before
every non-essential shop and leisure
centre is shuttered, all travel is
banned and we’re banged up again
at home?
Now an unnamed government
adviser proposes a circuit break
every school holiday. So that’s two
“or so” weeks in October, three at
Christmas. Then Easter would be
what? A month... or so? Something
for children to look forward to after
tense term-times and uncertainexam dates. In Manchester or
London, kids are already banned
from seeing friends indoors.
Hitherto, Sir Keir has shown a
lawyerly restraint in his cool calling
the government to account over
track and trace. But his sudden
advocacy of a national circuit break
comes just after he opposed stricter
regional lockdowns. In 19 out of 20
towns, he said, they haven’t worked
while such supposedly temporary
measures never end. Yet now he
proposes the whole of England is
shut down at half term, even Suffolk
(42 cases per 100,000) or Devon (77)
whose economies rely on already
booked family breaks. But these ruralareas are Tory-voting so who cares if
they unfairly lose out. Close them
anyway for a fortnight... or so.
National consensus on the
pandemic ended with lockdown and
has since become another front in
the culture war. The left now
portrays those balking at stricter
measures as right wing, Brexit-
backing, mask-spurning thickos
who’d kill your granny for a pint.
Whereas to advocate lockdown
proves you want to hold the NHS
and “the vulnerable” in a warm,
protective hug. As cases rise again,
many are fearful: in every poll,
half of us support total lockdown.
Labour argues that Sir Keir has
merely read the scientists’ memoMany nursing home
residents deteriorated
without precious visits
Janice
Turner
@victoriapeckham