Powerscourt Coronavirus Briefing – 15 December 2020

There is good news and bad news today from London, and about London.

The bad news is that the city and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire are moving to Tier 3 of the UK’s lockdown ladder from midnight tonight. Health secretary Matt Hancock said the move was necessary because of “sharp, exponential rises” in infections, including a new strain of COVID-19 which was “growing faster than the existing variants” and probably accounts for the big rise in infections in the southeast of England.

As from tomorrow, 34 million Britons will be affected by the toughest tier of restrictions. “This isn’t over yet,” Hancock said. Indeed. The Netherlands imposed tough lockdown measures to last until 19 January, while South Korea’s prime minister is urging citizens to abide by social distancing as daily infection rates hit a record level of around 1,000.

Writing in The Times, the columnist Melanie Phillips wonders why the UK is making such a poor fist of Covid. She says she was shocked on a visit to London last week to find how few people wore masks compared to Israel, where she lives. Loosening restrictions at Christmas risks a repeat of what happened in the US over Thanksgiving, when infections spiked. “Britain is marching implacably towards exactly the same reckless fate,” she writes.

The death toll in the US exceeded 300,000 on Monday even as the country rolled out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Sandra Lindsay, a nurse, became the first American to get the vaccine. “I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history,” she said.

Other countries are preparing for the day when vaccinations begin. The Irish government is to unveil its plan today, which will involve issuing 14 million doses of five separate vaccines, the Irish Times reports. Ireland has advance purchase agreements for five shots costing some €112 million, which will be available when the European Medicines Agency approves them.

Moderna, a US company that has developed a promising Covid-19 vaccine, said some of its research was hacked during a cyber attack on the EMA last week.

Now, about that good news. The City of London has been a ghost town for much of this year. Now the authorities are planning a “back to work” week where employers will encourage their employees to return, and the business infrastructure in the Square Mile will gear up to welcome them back. The event is scheduled for April.

In an interview with the Financial Times, City of London lord mayor William Russell says January and February will be tough, but adds: “We have to survive these months and hopefully come back with a bang in spring time. I want everyone to buy into this reopening.” He says the half a million people who came to work in the City daily before the pandemic will need some persuading to return. “COVID is a very personal thing,” he says. “Some are more nervous than others.”

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