I watched Parliament yesterday, remotely and from my home office desk in Shortlands. Clearly it is a unique and very different experience to being present in the Chamber. It did not sit well with me though.
I can assure everyone that all MPs (we speak on ZOOM and SKYPE quite a lot) are desperate to be back in Westminster so that we can do our job. But we have been told firmly that, unless it is essential, we should remain in our constituencies on lockdown – just like so many of our constituents.
Yesterday 828 more deaths were reported as a result of Coronavirus at the daily press conference run from 10 Downing Street. Appalling as that figure is at least it seems to be holding steady and at the same time hospital admissions caused by COVID-19 are reducing. It is also less than was being reported recently. With luck the huge jumps in daily figures so characteristic of briefings just 14 days or so ago may be over. Since the beginning of the months tests for Coronavirus have multiplied too and the number of people with positive readings seem to be in decline.
I realise that the Downing Street figures are just for hospital deaths and don’t include quite large numbers at home or in care homes but, although we do not have those figures and just have hospital mortality, the trend seems to be downwards.
Here in the London area where Coronavirus struck hard and fast – more than the rest of the UK – the figures are certainly promising. Hospital admissions seem to have fallen by about 40 per cent over the last fortnight and outside the Capital the figures are at least steadying.
A week ago, I tentatively suggested that we should be seeing positive results from the sacrifices we made to our freedoms soon. Perhaps we are now. Maybe, just maybe, we are reaching the so-called plateau, possibly even the peak if that is not being too optimistic.
But it is reported that from his convalescence Boris Johnson is very cagey about any form of loosening of measures. He’s quite right to be so. In the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-20 it came back with a vengeance for a second wave and killed more people than the first infections.
However, if the downward trend in deaths, infections and hospital admissions continues on a descending path it is fair for us to ask when we might see some changes to our living conditions? Personally, I do not expect us to abandon all restrictions in a big bang sort of moment. Clearly it will be gradual and in phases.
Last week Dominic Raab gave out the five conditions that need fulfilment before an exit strategy can be decided. Let me just revisit those conditions which were as follows:
1. Confidence that the NHS can still provide sufficient critical care and specialist treatment across the UK.
2. The need to see a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rate to be confident we are beyond the peak.
3. Reliable data from SAGE that the infection rate has decreased to manageable levels.
4. Testing capacity and PPE is in hand to meet supply for future demand.
5. Not risk a second peak of infection that overwhelms the NHS.
I believe we may have satisfied Conditions 1 – 3 now and, if we really can test 100,000 people a day or close to that, then Condition 4 might be satisfied soon. So, it may come down to a judgement call on Condition 5. That will be the gamble which will obviously worry the Prime Minister. If he gets that wrong and a second phase of infections grows then we could face severe lockdown again.
But my feel is that the Government will feel it has to lift some restrictions by 7 May and so that gamble may have to be taken.