"Government should not give notice for lockdown," says caller

13 October 2020, 16:28

This caller insists the Government should not give the public notice for local lockdowns as it will encourage people to socialise more up until the date restrictions come into force.

Speaking from Downing Street on Monday, the Prime Minister unveiled his new three tier lockdown system and announced that twelve areas will be classified as "high" on the alert level, with Liverpool City Region being classified as "very high."

Reflecting on this caller Tina from Dartford branded the Government as being "behind the curve with every single decision they make."

"I cannot understand the logic behind almost every Thursday [saying] 'there's going to be some more restrictive measures next week," she said, "they clearly don't understand how people work because they go 'oh my god, we're locking down next week...let's all get out this weekend and meet up and do every single thing they can'.

She continued: "Every time they do that the virus has spread and spread and spread...they keep giving warnings or they keep giving five days notice of something coming up."

Shelagh countered that the Government are also criticised when they do not give people enough notice about restriction changes.

Tina agreed that the Government are criticised no matter what they do "so they need to do what's right and what's sensible."

She countered, "This is a national emergency, we are in a pandemic. If there's a train crash coming along the road you don't go 'the most important thing is I give people notice and time', we all know the situation that we're in and any action can be taken at any time."

Shelagh posited that just as the Government lifted the national lockdown too soon, "it is arguable they have decided to try and get that new balance a bit too soon."

Tina "completely" agreed with this: "They're constantly making the wrong decisions...at the wrong time. In March we had time to lockdown, we had three weeks notice, we had time to lockdown and get this thing completely under control."

She reflected that as the UK was slightly behind Italy and France in the pandemic timeline, the Government could have foreseen the issues and taken the correct action - but "they weren't taking it seriously and didn't understand."