Coronavirus infection has "gone too far" for a national lockdown, says microbiologist

18 September 2020, 19:10

Coronavirus infection has "gone too far" for a national lockdown

Microbiologist Professor Sally Jane Cutler told LBC's Andrew Pierce that a second lockdown will have no effect on quelling the virus and will simply have a "negative effect" on the economy.

A second wave of coronavirus cases is hitting the UK and was always "inevitable", Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

This comes amid reports a two week national lockdown is being planned to coincide with the October half term after a further increase of the UK's R number to between 1.1 and 1.4.

Microbiologist Professor Sally Jane Cutler told Andrew it has "gone too far into the course of the infection for a two week lockdown to have any effect on stopping the progression of the virus."

Instead, she said, a lockdown will simply have a "negative effect" on the economy and focus on shielding the vulnerable.

"I don't think we can stop it, I think this virus is going to spread. While there's still people who haven't had the infection which is most of us I don't think we can stop it - we can hopefully slow it down a little bit," Professor Cutler said.

Andrew asked whether the Government's newly introduced 'rule of six' is restricting the quell of the virus.

"Not at all...because you've got people mingling together still on public transport, they're clustering together in schools, on their journey to schools...people are going to work still," she said, pointing out that if the public aren't clustering together socially, they are certainly clustering together in every other part of their lives.

"I think a lot of people probably will disregard it," Professor Sally Jane Cutler said.