BRITS were tonight given grim Government warnings that Covid cases could climb to 100,000 daily – and told “this pandemic is not over”.
Sajid Javid dangled the bleak prospect of tough winter restrictions like masks, working from home and vaccine passports to blunt another spike.
The Health Secretary said while Plan B contingency measures won’t happen immediately they was still on the table and begged Brits not to “blow it”.
Mr Javid also warned that hospitalisations – the key factor that could tip the balance towards restrictions – could spiral to 1,000 a day.
He used a Downing St press conference to urge those eligible to have a third dose of the vaccine to top up their antibodies.
The top Tory said this was “not just to save lives, but to keep your freedoms too.”
Both he and Boris Johnson have backed The Sun’s Give Britain A Booster campaign amid concerns of low take-up rates and waning immunity.
In key developments:
Fears of fresh restrictions have grown in recent days amid a surge in Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths – which yesterday reached their highest since March at 223.
NHS chiefs have called on ministers to enact their Plan B toolbox of contingency measures to supress a seasonal surge.
Mr Javid said tonight: “We won’t be implementing our Plan B of measures at this point but we will be remaining vigilant.”
The PM has so far resisted pushing the panic button and tonight Mr Javid instead gave a rallying cry for people to get boosters.
Frontline workers and the most vulnerable are currently being called forward for their boosters, to be followed by over-50s in age order.
Mr Kwarteng this morning said plunging back into lockdown would be “completely wrong” and take a sledgehammer to the economic recovery.
Downing Street have also insisted there are “no plans” to enact their Plan B just yet.
Last month the PM said Plan B has “a number of different shots in the locker”.
He said: “You wouldn’t necessarily play them all at once, far from it, you would want to do things in a graduated way.”
The Government have not put a threshold on when Plan B would be launched, but reports have suggested 250 daily deaths is the top end.
Boris Johnson's Plan B was announced last month as a back-up in case hospitalisations and deaths spiralled out of control as the country unlocked.
MASKS
Since July masks haven’t been mandatory on public transport or in shops as they once were.
Britain is an outlier among European nations, many of which still require face coverings in crowded spaces.
Government guidance encourages Brits to wear them in enclosed settings – although they have the power to make them a legal requirement once again.
WORKING FROM HOME
As recently as this month at Conservative Party Conference Boris Johnson was banging the drum for workers to go back to the office.
Over the past few months people have slowly been trudging back to their desks as Government guidance changed.
But Plan B includes provisions for ministers to once again hunker down at home and do business on Zoom.
VACCINE PASSPORTS
Contentious vaccine passports have proved a thorny issue during the pandemic but could return under Johnson’s Plan B.
The prospect was all but killed by the PM before it was announced they’d be needed for nightclubs this month.
The u-turn was widely seen as a ploy to encourage more teenagers to get jabbed and was quietly ditched.
Some large venues such as sports stadiums are using Covid certificates as a voluntary measure.
Under Plan B this could be extended to all nightclubs, any indoor venue with more than 500 people, any outdoor settings with more than 1,000 people.
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