‘Don’t tear the pants out of it!’ Government warns British public not to abuse new liberties as Covid-19 lockdown is eased and urges ‘we’re at a very dangerous moment’ after huge crowds swarm beaches
- England’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van Tam warned Britons
- Blunt instruction to Britons came as thousands of sun-seekers hit the beaches
- They jumped the gun on Monday when lockdown is set to be loosened further
- At the daily press conference Oliver Dowden announced a further 215 deaths
A senior government scientific adviser has urged the public to follow the rules of the loosened lockdown to the letter and not ‘tear the pants out of it’.
England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van Tam warned that abusing the newfound liberties would risk a second wave of infection.
His blunt instruction to Britons came as thousands of sun-seekers jumped the gun on Monday’s easing of restrictions to cram on to beaches.
At the daily Number 10 briefing, Prof Van Tam reminded the country of how infectious Covid-19 is and likened the disease to a coiled spring.
Speaking beside Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden he said: ‘One case will infect three more people.
‘It is like having a spring in a box and you have got the lid on. Now you can take the lid off a little but you haven’t disconnected the spring or broken the spring in any way.
‘If you take the lid right off the spring is still under tension and off it will go again.
‘This is a dual responsibility here of Government to go slowly and carefully and to take the advice from the scientists, of the scientists to watch this whole thing very closely over the next few weeks and of the public in general to actually follow the guidance.
‘Don’t tear the pants out of it and don’t go further than the guidance actually says.’
Professor Jonathan Van Tam told the daily press conference ‘don’t tear the pants out of it’
His blunt instruction to Britons came as thousands of sun-seekers jumped the gun on Monday’s easing of restrictions to cram on to beaches (Bournemouth pictured)
He told the press conference that the lockdown easing must go ‘painstakingly’ slowly, adding: ‘The scientists will continue to give that advice to the Government. No apologies for that, we will absolutely continue to do that.’
Referring back to when levels of the virus were higher, he said at that point he had noted it was a very dangerous moment.
He added: ‘I believe this is also a very dangerous moment. We have to get this right.’
Discussing the latest statistics, he said he had noticed ‘some increase’ in cases in the past few days.
But he added: ‘I want to be clear that that is a trend that we have seen before in these data and what is rather more important is that you look at the seven-day rolling average which continues to show a clear downward trend, and that is important.’
Mr Dowden announced the figure today at Downing Street’s daily press conference, where he also revealed 2,445 more people had tested positive for the virus
Mr Dowden confirmed a further 215 more Covid-19 deaths, taking the official number of coronavirus victims to 38,376 – but it is the lowest Saturday total since lockdown began.
Today’s death figure marks the lowest Saturday rise since March 21, three days before the country went into lockdown, when there were just 56 coronavirus fatalities.
It is down from the record high of 1,115 recorded on Saturday April 18 during the peak of the crisis. For comparison, there were 282 deaths last Saturday.
But despite the continued downward trend, three of the Government’s coronavirus scientists claim the UK is lifting restrictions too soon.
The reproduction ‘R’ rate – the average number of people an infected patient passes the virus to – is sitting between 0.7 and 0.9 and if it breaches 1 then the outbreak could spiral back out of control.