With one in 50 now having Covid, there’s simply no excuse to break the rules
WE’VE witnessed some chilling press conferences in the past year. Yesterday’s was the most terrifying.
One in 50 of us now has Covid. Rocketing hospitalisations are threatening to overwhelm the NHS in a way they did not last April. Daily deaths, already horrifically high, are set to soar too.
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Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty says we now face “a really serious emergency”, that the risk is “extraordinarily high” unless we stay locked-down at home and follow the rules to the letter.
The Sun hates the repeated curbs on our freedom. But the new and far more infectious virus mutation has changed the picture.
There is simply no excuse now for anyone to think the rules don’t apply to them — or to swallow dangerous online conspiracy theories.
The good news, and there is some, is that 1.3million Brits have had their first jab, including a quarter of over-80s.
Progress has been too slow, though, in the past week.
Boris Johnson MUST fulfil his vow to accelerate it hugely within days. We welcome his agreement to publish daily updated totals next week.
It is vital we have ambitious targets and meet them.
Border farce
IT is staggering that it has taken so long to prevent Covid-positive travellers from setting foot in the UK.
Yes, our international airports present a huge logistical challenge. But other major nations manage multiple tests and properly policed quarantines.
Here, many arrivals saunter in without even having their temperature taken.
This is not to say the new mutations originated abroad (though the South African one did, by definition, and we should consider temporarily barring passengers from there).
And The Sun would not yet back the total sealing of our borders. But since we are locking down the entire nation it is madness not to ensure every newcomer is virus-free.
We have no time for those who habitually denounce every Boris decision.
But his Government HAS failed utterly to control our borders since the virus struck.
Bailout bill
THE pandemic has damaged our economy more than anything in history, according to top economist Paul Johnson.
Yet, inevitably, Rishi Sunak was forced to deepen our debt by £4.6billion more yesterday to keep 600,000 firms afloat.
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Britain has borrowed so much that eyes now glaze over as such vast sums are given away. But what else can the Chancellor do? Thriving businesses face ruin through no fault of their own.
In the end the Covid bill must be parked, treated as a wartime debt and paid down gradually over a generation.
And we must pray this really is a once-in-a-lifetime horror.
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