Keeping up the fight against COVID-19

 

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the Prime Minister has set out that as we come out of national restrictions on Wednesday we cannot afford to let the virus take hold again.

The Prime Minister has also written to Members of Parliament setting out how we will implement the Covid Winter Plan and safeguard Parliament’s role.  

  • While infection levels have started to fall, they are still at a high level, and the pressure on hospitals remains severe. 
     
  • A tougher tiered system is necessary if we are to keep the virus under control, avoid overwhelming the NHS or prevent another national lockdown which is more damaging and restrictive than the tiered system.
     
  • On 2 December, national restrictions will end, as the government promised they would, and we will return to strengthened tiers set out in the Covid-19 Winter Plan, subject to parliamentary approval the day before. 
     
  • Ahead of the vote, the Prime Minister has confirmed:

    • Parliament will have the opportunity to confirm its support for these measures after we review their impact at the end of January.
       
    • There will be an opportunity to review all tier allocations at the first review point on 16 December.
       
    • The government will set out publicly the circumstances that need to change in each region for it to be considered to move down a tier.
       
    • The government will also update the COVID-19 public data daily dashboard to include all available relevant data.
       
    • Ahead of the vote on Tuesday, the ggovernment ill publish further analysis of the health, economic and social impacts of Covid and the measures taken to suppress them.
       
    • The government - and I hope all those of us who can - will continue to support hospitality and hard-hit businesses.
       
  • Only by keeping the virus under control through these local measures will we be able to see friends and family over Christmas in a relatively safe way while managing the threat the virus still poses. As mass testing and vaccines are rolled out through winter and into the spring, the need for even localised restrictions will gradually reduce – and life can once again return closer to normality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more