Former minister warns Johnson to 'close schools now' -

Credit: The Independent

The Prime Minister has been told to act fast to stop the spread of COVID-19, with a former minister for the conservative party warning he should shut schools now and ban large gatherings as soon as possible.

Boris chaired another emergency Cobra committee meeting yesterday, where he maintained that the official virus strategy was still in the ‘contain’ phase and not yet in the ‘delay’ phase of the plan.

Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, has said that the number of COVID-19 cases is expected to grow ‘initially quite slowly but really quite fast after a while’.

He suggested that tighter measures aimed at protecting the public, particularly the vulnerable and elderly, would possibly be implemented within the next two weeks.

Former Tory Cabinet minister Rory Stewart has criticised the government’s efforts for not moving into the next phase of the plan already, saying Mr Johnson should be closing schools and banning big events sooner rather than later.

The latest figures are showing that 61 of the UK’s confirmed cases are in London, with 43 in the South East, 38 in the South West and 35 in the North West of England. 5 in the UK have now died form the virus.

Speaking to LBC, Stewart said that using the example of China, as well as his own leadership experience against the Ebola outbreak, the Prime minister could not afford to wait.

The now independent candidate for Mayor of London said: ‘I feel the government should be moving faster, I’m afraid there are many reasons why governments tend to be too slow, for example the costs of acting early are very very high.

‘But I would be, for example, shutting down all schools in London now.’

He went on to say: ‘You should have no regrets about acting quickly, this is the biggest single event of this kind for 100 years since the Spanish flu, of course there are going to be significant economic costs, but better to take those economic costs immediately and keep it short and I think we are being too slow in responding.’