Lifting social distancing before Christmas “excessive and premature” – expert

A public health professor said lifting social distancing measures in time for Christmas was an “enthusiastic and premature approach” as the infection rate was still too high.

The Prime Minister said on Friday he hoped to relax the one-metre distancing rule in November at the earliest.

At a press conference in Downing Street, Boris Johnson said: “We hope that it might not be until November at the earliest – if we continue to make progress in our fight against the virus – that it might be possible to move away from social distancing measures, the one-metre rule and other measures.”

“As I said, that depends entirely on our ability to continue to keep the virus under control.”

He expressed the hope that remaining restrictions could be reviewed and a more significant return to normality would be possible “possibly in time for Christmas”.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said the infection rate in the population is currently too high for this to happen.

She referred to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey published on Friday, which shows that there are around 1,700 new infections in England every day, the same number as last week.

She said that with the exception of New Zealand and Vietnam, most countries in the world still have the one-metre rule as a minimum distance.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Professor Bauld said: “The one-metre rule could only be abolished if there were no Covid cases across the country for several months.”

“It seems strange to say we can lift social distancing when the virus is present in society at even a small level and people are flying in and out of the country.

“This is an enthusiastic approach that is premature.”

Mr Johnson also pledged to provide an additional £3 billion to the NHS and increase testing capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October to prepare for a possible second surge in Covid-19 cases in the winter.

Professor Bauld said any suggestion by the Government to lift social distancing by November contradicted its statements about planning for a possible second wave.

She said: “We could be in a better position in November, but I am not optimistic.

“We in the scientific community are concerned about winter, so why do they say something like this could happen at such a crucial time?”

“It seems to me this is about having a normal Christmas,” she added.

“I hope we have zero cases, but we are not there yet.”

England's chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, had previously warned that social distancing measures would need to be maintained until a vaccine or highly effective drugs were found to contain the severity of the virus.

Current guidelines say people should try to keep two metres apart, or one metre if possible, by taking additional precautions such as wearing a face covering, sitting next to each other rather than facing each other, and washing hands frequently.