'Third lockdown is a result of Government mistakes' - says Imran Hussain MP

THE need for a third national lockdown proves just how dangerously the Government have handled this crisis

When we entered the first national lockdown last March, we had no idea that we would still be going round in circles almost 12 months later. Yet because of the Government’s mishandling of this crisis, Ministers repeatedly dropping the ball and the Prime Minister refusing to step in until he is left with absolutely no choice, that is sadly where we all are.

With infection rates rising rapidly, there is an urgent need for a national lockdown before Intensive Care Units, hospitals and NHS staff are overwhelmed by this deadly disease, and I am in no doubt as to its virulence and lethality.

So, whilst I do not wish for the country to be taken into its third national lockdown, I recognise the need to act before it is too late.

However, the urgent need for this national lockdown does not take away from the fact that such restrictions would not be necessary if the Government had not made three huge mistakes in their response which have not just prevented them from being able to get on top of this crisis but have actively promoted infections.

The first of these mistakes was to prevent a key component in the response to one of the biggest public health crises that the country has faced from being led by a publicly run, operated and accountable body, and the decision to instead outsource it to a company whose primary motivation is not public health, but private profit.

As a result, we have ended up with a Test and Trace service that not only failed to live up to the Prime Minister’s promise of being “world-beating” by not even being operational until well into the year, but a system that is nowhere near to this standard. If we did, we would have been able to identify and stamp out rising infection rates with much greater precision at a much earlier time in the crisis before it became impossible to contain or control.

Instead, we got a system that locked out local authorities from accessing the information and data that they needed to quickly quash local outbreaks and prevent wider restrictions, remained inaccessible for many people even throughout the height of the crisis, and diverted vital funds to prop up a privatised model which could have been much better spent on sourcing PPE and funding a more comprehensive roll-out of testing.

Without spending millions on a private testing system and private consultants, the Government could also have better supported Bradford’s most vulnerable to self-isolate when they received a positive test or experienced coronavirus symptoms, and their failure to provide this support is their second biggest mistake during this crisis.

Whilst it is important to be able to identify and track cases, it is just as important to ensure that those with the infection or suspected to have it are prevented from passing it to others by self-isolating. Yet for many of those on the lowest incomes without savings who cannot work from home, they simply cannot afford to do so and are instead forced to chose between self-isolating or putting a roof over their head and food on their table.

It is here that the Government should have stepped in from the beginning instead of forcing people to rely on furlough or other schemes that had too many gaping holes, or on Statutory Sick Pay which at just £95 a week is an amount even the Health Secretary himself said he could not live on.

Yet they did not, and instead, they waited until September to announce a self-isolation payment scheme that has too many strict eligibility criteria for it to be of use for many people who must self-isolate, and they have created a situation where people are now actually fearful of getting tested in case they prove positive and must self-isolate.

For people to be fearful of doing the right thing rather than encouraged shows just how badly the Government have handled this issue, but whilst these two mistakes are significant enough on their own, their third is the biggest.

At almost every step along the way throughout this crisis, the Government refused to listen to science, reason and common sense, and even appeared to actively ignore it, leading them to make many inexcusable, catastrophic errors.

They discharged Covid-positive patients into care homes without any precautions, lifted national restrictions when only London was seeing reduced infection rates, pushed the Eat Out to Help Out scheme without consulting scientists which ultimately increased infection rates, refused to include teachers amongst those key workers to be regularly tested, confused people with messages that changed on an almost weekly basis, and sent children back to school despite the evidence showing they were becoming hubs of transmission.

If the Government sat down, thought things through, and paid attention to what they were being told, and instead did the opposite of even just one of these crippling mistakes, we would be in a much better, much less worrying place than we are right now.  

If they did the opposite for them all, we would not be in a third national lockdown, and if they avoided all their obvious mistakes, listened to the science and experts, ensured that people could self-isolate and backed a publicly run Test and Trace system, we would not have needed such stringent restrictions in the latter half of last year, let alone at Christmas, and we would be looking at a much more positive start to the New Year.