Coronavirus: Two-week ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown could save 7,000 lives, Sage says

A two-week national lockdown, which includes stay-at-home orders and school closures, could save 7,000 lives, scientific advisors to the government have calculated.

It is estimated that a short ‘circuit breaker’, starting from 24 October, could reduce deaths for the rest of the year from roughly 19,900 to 12,100, according to members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). Hospital admissions could also fall from 132,000 to 66,000.

A limited lockdown, which would see hospitality venues closed but schools and shops remain open, could cut deaths to 15,600, the scientists’ modelling shows.

The findings come from a non-peer-reviewed paper put together by Sage’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M).

In a statement released on Wednesday, the authors of the paper said that a circuit breaker is “not a lasting control measure”, but would allow the country “more time” to put other controls and measures in place.

“Cases of Covid-19 are rising exponentially in almost all regions of the country, with some areas experiencing extremely high levels of infection," SPI-M said.

“Against this backdrop of rising cases, our paper examines the impact of a short two-week period of intense control. In the paper we time this to coincide with the October half-term to minimise any disruption to education.

“Using two different modelling approaches we show that a short, sharp two-week break leads to a decline in cases, with similar declines in hospitalisation and mortality over a short period — this could potentially reduce the acute load on the NHS enabling it to continue non-Covid care into the winter months.”

The scientists say that “the optimal time for a break is always now; there are no good epidemiological reasons to delay the break”, although they add that it could also be implemented during the Christmas holidays or spring half-term.

The paper comes after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on the government to implement a short national lockdown to try to bring the disease under control.

In his boldest move since becoming Labour leader in April, Mr Starmer used a live televised news conference to say: “Three things are now clear: the government has not got a credible plan to slow infections. It has lost control of the virus. And it’s no longer following the scientific advice.”

He said that Boris Johnson’s three-tier Covid Alert Level plan, launched on Monday, would cause “prolonged agony” to the economy as restrictions were repeatedly ramped up.

The Labour leader argued that a two or three-week lockdown would provide time to “reset” the government’s faltering test-and-trace system.

It emerged on Monday that the prime minister dismissed a recommendation for a 'circuit-breaker’ from Sage three weeks ago, opting instead for the less drastic three-tier local alert system.

While No 10 is reportedly keeping the idea of a short lockdown on the table, Northern Ireland is moving ahead with plans to implement the strategy over a four-week period.

Following a meeting of the Stormont executive that extended into the early hours of this morning, deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill tweeted to say "painstaking consideration" had been given to the "next steps".

She wrote: "We know this is hard and that people will be worried about their livelihoods, but we will do everything we possibly can to make sure there are protections in place for businesses, workers and families."

Professor Matt Keeling, one of the Sage scientists behind the new paper, said the "stricter the restrictions, the greater the impact" would be in tackling the virus across the UK.

"One of the ways of thinking about this is it kind of takes us back in time to when cases were lower, and therefore gives us opportunities to do other things, it reduces the number of cases as well as leading to a similar decline in hospitalisations and also deaths over a short period,” he told the BBC's Today programme.

Put to him that a circuit-breaker "simply postpones" deaths, Prof Keeling said he "completely" agreed with that but added: "We stress that this is only a short-term measure — it buys us time to put other measures in place, but at the moment we do need that time."

He said: “So we're not advocating any one policy in this paper, we are just looking at a range of things.”

More than half (54 per cent) of people surveyed by YouGov on Tuesday felt the government should have introduced a national lockdown in September, while 28 per cent of the 4,222 adults polled disagreed.