Has UK lockdown come too late?
The UK’s Channel 4 News posited a simple question, with a difficult answer, by asking if the UK lockdown came too late.
The unprecedented national effort to combat the spread of the virus has continued today.
The Government followed up yesterday’s demand for people to stay at home with a mass text message to the whole population.
The Health Secretary said the new instructions were not requests but rules – but questions remain over exactly who is allowed to leave their home and how the police will enforce it.
He also announced a recruitment drive for 250,000 volunteers to help the NHS – and plans for a new hospital to open next week at the Excel Centre in east London.
Channel 4 News YouTube Channel
On a day which saw the steepest rise in coronavirus deaths, and as the UK Government builds a huge makeshift hospital in the ExCeL centre in London, it is clear that the order to lockdown might have been made sooner.
Certainly, the lessons of Italy and Spain appear to be missed opportunities. Doctors in Italy were issuing warnings not to leave it too late weeks ago – this report from 11 March 2020, almost two weeks before the UK eventually locked down.
