Celebrities back campaign for Covid Memorial Day and ‘essential’ monument on Whitehall

A campaign calling for the government to formally recognise 23 March as a ‘Covid Memorial Day’ has received support from a number of celebrities.

According to campaigning organisation March for Change, schools, workplaces and all public venues across the country should observe a minute’s silence each year from 23 March 2022 onwards.

The group is also calling for a Covid Memorial Monument to be built on Whitehall where the public can lay wreaths each year. It launched its campaign on the day the UK marked the anniversary of the first national coronavirus lockdown.

Celebrities supporting the campaign include poet and children’s author Michael Rosen, historian and television presenter Dan Snow, and actor and author Emma Kennedy.

Mr Rosen, who is living with long Covid, said the loss of “well over a 100,000 people” was a “disaster”.

“Tens of thousands of families, friends and loved ones of those who died will always live with the memory of what has happened. Tens of thousands more are living with Long Covid and this in turn affects the lives of thousands more,” he said.

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“It is essential that we have a space or place and time to remember and reflect on this tragedy.”

Ms Kennedy added: “We have lost so many people to this terrible disease, not only here in the UK, but worldwide. Covid has hit our disabled, our BAME community and our elderly disproportionately and left many suffering the debilitating effects of Long Covid.”

Meanwhile, Mr Snow said the nation “cannot afford to forget those we lost, those who served and what we learned”.

The campaign is also backed by organisations and unions representing NHS and frontline workers, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, Community Integrated Care, GMB Union, Local Government Association and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers.

50 MPs and peers from across political parties also wrote a letter to Boris Johnson urging him to back the initiative.

The prime minister said on Tuesday a permanent memorial to the victims of Covid-19 will be built “at the right moment”.

Mr Johnson told a Downing Street press conference: “At the right moment we will come together as a country to build a fitting and a permanent memorial to the loved ones we’ve lost and to commemorate this whole period.

“For month after month, our collective fight against coronavirus was like fighting in the dark against a callous and invisible enemy until science helped us to turn the lights on and gain the upper hand.”

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, welcomed his pledge and said: “We are reassured to hear that the Prime Minister has already endorsed our calls for a permanent memorial for all the lives lost to the pandemic,” the Lib Dem MP said.

“The London memorial must also be a permanent reminder of the sacrifice made by all key workers who got the UK through this crisis. The only fitting place for it is on Whitehall, where wreaths can be laid.

“We will now launch our public consultation on the design of the monument, to ensure that the British public is at the centre of the memorialisation of the pandemic.”