The political divisions are far starker than they were in the first wave of the U.K.\u2019s epidemic, with commentators now comparing the tone with the fractious COVID-19 debate in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Voters\u2019 nerves are fraying, too; while opinion polls still indicate strong support for restrictions<\/a> to slow the virus, focus group research is uncovering a public confused, exasperated and potentially less likely to comply.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a very different mood to the one in April,\u201d said former Downing Street pollster James Johnson of JL Partners, who has conducted several focus groups in recent weeks. \u201cThere is a lot of fatigue, frustration and confusion \u2026 We are in a very different situation which I think can only mean less compliance. This happy, obedient picture being sketched by the polls \u2014 it\u2019s actually very different and it\u2019s not going to be anything like last time.\u201d<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean, James Johnson said, that the U.K. will see mass disobedience. But it\u2019s bad news for the government nonetheless.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s resignation, not revolution,\u201d he said. But there is \u201ca lot of frustration,\u201d particularly with the ailing NHS Test & Trace system, which Boris Johnson said in July<\/a> would \u201cplay a vital part in ensuring that we do not have a second spike this winter,\u201d but which has been beset by problems.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no doubt trust has gone down,\u201d James Johnson said. \u201cSome of the rhetoric definitely jars.\u201d The phrase \u201cworld-beating,\u201d in reference to Test & Trace, often came up in focus groups, he added. \u201cPeople have referred to that and just laugh at it \u2014 in disbelief.<\/p>\n \u201cThen there\u2019s the confusion element. Lots of people are saying they don\u2019t know exactly what the rules are.\u201d A viral video<\/a> by comedian Matt Lucas from the spring, mocking the prime minister\u2019s unclear explanations, \u201chas been mentioned in every focus group I\u2019ve done since May,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso,\u201d the pollster added, touching on a basic but non-negligible reason a second wave could be grimmer: \u201cIt\u2019s cold.\u201d<\/p>\n The new three-tier, regional approach is unlikely to help resolve public bewilderment, according to leading infectious disease expert, director of the Wellcome Trust and member of SAGE Jeremy Farrar, who believes the pandemic has reached a point in its upward curve where a national, \u201ccircuit-breaker\u201d lockdown is now needed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very evident that the arguments over regional lockdowns are causing confusion and delays. These sort of public disagreements, and a lack of transparency over what\u2019s going on behind the scenes, really will fuel a lack of trust in what is being done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand the difficult balance the government has, but we need to remember there is a lot of value in a sense of equity, fairness and collective action. Cohesion is important. Setting regions against each other, or nations within the U.K. against one another, only fuels resentment and bitterness. And it\u2019s consuming energy that is better spent on the solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Without consensus, he added \u201cissues start to become defined not by their public health value but through a political perspective\u201d \u2014 something for which there are already international parallels. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened with the politicization of masks in the U.S.A. is a very clear example of this,\u201d Farrar said. \u201cThis does nothing for the trust that is crucial to effective public health measures.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea that the virus can now be contained with a region-by-region strategy isn\u2019t just bad for national unity, it\u2019s bad science, many government advisers believe.<\/p>\n Farrar has said that even the top-level, tier three restrictions would not be enough \u201cto turn the epidemic around,\u201d but would hurt local economies all the same. \u201cIn a sense, we\u2019re almost in the worst of all worlds here and we\u2019re ultimately going to have to choose,\u201d he told the BBC on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n When Farrar and other members of SAGE speak \u2014 increasingly critically \u2014 to the media about these issues, they are often saying things that Johnson\u2019s top scientific advisers Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance would like to but can\u2019t, according to one government official. \u201cThe advice from scientists was very clearly \u2018circuit breaker\u2019 a few weeks ago,\u201d the official said. \u201cBut politically the Chief Medical Officer [Chris Whitty] and Chief Scientific Adviser [Patrick Vallance] have to retain the faith of people in the heart of government.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitty himself was as upfront as he could be in a press conference last Monday, saying that he was not confident the \u201cbaseline\u201d tier three measures \u2014 shutting bars and pubs, banning almost all household mixing \u2014 would be enough (local authorities can add measures if they choose, in consultation with government). He also had a message about the need for \u201cpolitical consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201ccentral thing\u201d about this next phase of the U.K.\u2019s epidemic was that \u201cpeople buy into\u201d the new measures, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t just mean political leaders \u2014 although [it\u2019s] absolutely essential that they do, and that there is as much consensus as possible \u2014 but also everybody\u2019s got to buy into them. That\u2019s how it works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n No. 10, so far, is sticking to its guns and its regional approach. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove told the BBC\u2019s Andrew Marr on Sunday that the government had evidence that tier three restrictions plus \u201ctailored\u201d local add-ons could bring down infection rates and the prime minister \u2014 while not ruling out further steps \u2014 has argued it makes no sense to shut down businesses in areas with low transmission.<\/p>\n At that same press conference last Monday, Johnson chose to be flanked by Whitty on one side and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak on the other \u2014 a visual representation of the \u201cbalanced approach\u201d he says the government is taking, weighing both the public health imperatives and the need not to harm the economy with overly harsh restrictions.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a framing for the debate that is increasingly questioned, in another sign of how consensus is crumbling in the second wave.<\/p>\n \u201cThe supposed choice between saving the economy and saving lives, between restrictions and freedoms, is an entirely false one,\u201d said Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on Thursday, as he announced the capital was going into tier two restrictions (he, like his party leader, backs a national \u201ccircuit breaker\u201d lockdown). \u201cThe later we take the necessary steps to slow the spread of the virus, the more severe these steps will have to be and the longer they will have to last in order to drive down infection rates.\u201d<\/p>\n His words represent a clear strategic difference of opinion with the government, something unheard of in the first wave.<\/p>\n In fairness to the government, back then the economic choice to bail out businesses and support jobs to the tune of tens of billions of pounds (though unprecedented) was made easier by the very fact that it was<\/em> the first time. Now, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies<\/a> think tank, those spending decisions have forced government borrowing up to levels not seen in the U.K. outside the two world wars.<\/p>\n No wonder Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, when asked on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today program on Friday whether the government offer for businesses and citizens would increase, responded that \u2014 while everything is always under review \u2014 there was \u201cinevitably a limit at some point about how much money we can churn.\u201d<\/p>\n But where that limit should be is becoming fierce political battleground. For Louise Casey, until recently government\u2019s lead adviser on homelessness, the current level of support won\u2019tRead More \u2013 Source<\/a> [contfnewc] LONDON \u2014 The U.K.\u2019s second wave of coronavi..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":151629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\nFear and loathing <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Second wave economics <\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\npolitico<\/a><\/h5>\n
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