DORSET County Hospital's Chief Medical Officer has welcomed the Prime Minister’s 'cautious' roadmap out of national lockdown, claiming that lifting restrictions too quickly could lead to a spike in cases and overwhelm hospitals.
Boris Johnson has announced his four-stage plan to ease coronavirus restrictions, with targeted dates set for relaxation of rules on social mixing, reopening non-essential businesses and pubs and restaurants.
In a ‘cautious’ approach, he explained the dates in the four stages were guidelines, with the plan being driven by 'data not dates'.
Professor Alastair Hutchison, chief medical officer at Dorset County Hospital, previously called for a gradual easing of restrictions and welcomed the Government’s move.
He said: “I think the plan looks good. I think the pace is appropriate and I think that people are tending to take the dates as absolute definite but every version of the plan I have seen says 'no earlier than this date'.
"The Government is hoping it will happen on that date but they are clear that if anything happens, that may be postponed. There is a five-week notice period before every step because you don’t see any effect from a change for at least three weeks and probably four weeks and then they need time to analyse the data and announce if anything will happen.
“I think the plan is sensible. I know a few figures and some Tory MPs are calling for it to be quicker but I don’t think it will be sensible or practical to do that.”
When asked why a faster release of coronavirus restrictions would not be ‘sensible or practical’, Prof Hutchison explained that it could cause another spike in coronavirus cases.
Richard Drax, South Dorset MP, believes the lockdown roadmap is too cautious for businesses ‘already clinging on to survival by their eyelashes’.
Prof Hutchison said: “I think that there is some modelling that has come out suggesting that if you tired to force an earlier date, there would be a real likelihood of a third wave as bad as wave two.
“Hospitals would be busy and it would be bad for us all. You would have wasted time and good efforts following this lockdown and gone back to square one.
“I think there is a real risk of that and we need to give the vaccination programme time to get through the whole of the community and to give them time to generate immunity (to coronavirus).
“That takes a minimum of two weeks and in many people that can be three to four weeks to get the full protection from a vaccination.”
Boris Johnson has suggested that all coronavirus restrictions could be lifted no earlier than June 21, something Prof Hutchison thinks is 'possible' but two scenarios could prevent this from happening.
Prof Hutchison said: “I think it can be possible but it does depend. There are a few things that could blow us off course.
“One could be shortage of vaccine, but there is no evidence of that. Other than that, a new variant could develop that the vaccines aren’t responsive to, but there is no evidence of that.
“Until we get to May and June, we just can’t know for definite but I am very much hoping it will be possible and I think it is possible that it will be.”
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