Anti-Lockdown Mob Has Its Rs Blowing Off

The lockdown across the UK was ordered with one simple objective in mind - reducing significantly the numbers of contacts between individuals, and thereby the transmission of the Coronavirus from one person to another. Hence the need for caution - and the maintenance of social distancing - as restrictions are eased. The reproduction rate of the virus, otherwise knows as its R-number, has to be kept down.

The letter R had become dislodged in the inclement weather, Dud

But even before the easing of lockdown last week, the virus was showing signs of further encroachment, with Sky News telling yesterday “Coronavirus: 'R' infection number as high as 1 after rising over past week, SAGE says”. Reeta Chakrabarti tackled Matt Hancock on the subject. “Hancock asked if government is reconsidering lockdown as R rate has gone up. He says they are constantly keeping R rate under review. They don’t think R is above 1 so still meets government test. He accepts there is a time lag to the reporting of R”.

R must have gone up before the official easing of lockdown, given the time lag in detecting infection. Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News observed “Matt Hancock acknowledges data is out of date and that R rate has increased from a range of 0.6-09 to 0.7-1. Jenny Harries then says it’s the number of cases they are focussed on not the R rate. Hasn’t that fallen because of lockdown, which is about to relax?”

The Green Party’s Sian Berry reflected “R is already rising, so I’m *very* worried where we will be in a week’s time”. Sunny Hundal added “I give it about a month before we go into harsher lockdown again”. And Sam Coates of Sky News concluded “Confused? Yes we R. Tonight’s R-rate rises”. That has not stopped the anti-lockdown wacko fringe, though.

So it was that the Spectator’s routinely dishonest editor Fraser Nelson told “London is almost Covid-free - so why not let the city start getting back to work?” Yes, there are so few new infections that we must surely be allowed a few more. The problem here was that he was not alone, as the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens demonstrated.

Unfortunately for Hitchens, he has become so desperate that he is prepared to go with “‘We could open up again and forget the whole thing’ - spiked”. He’s sharing an article in Spiked, so called because it should have been long ago, with Knut Wittkowski, who has claimed that social distancing is not the right way to arrest the pandemic.

He apparently goes for “herd immunity” to stop Covid-19. It wouldn’t. He claimed that the final death toll in the USA would be around 10,000. It’s now well over 80,000. But he says what the anti-lockdown fringe wants to hear, so he’s in demand. As is anyone prepared to contribute to Lockdown Sceptics, another dubious offering brought to you by the loathsome Toby Young. But none of this coherently addresses the point.

What about the danger to the teachers, Tobes?

The reproduction rate of Covid-19 in the UK remains stubbornly too high, and if the easing of restrictions makes matters worse, may well go yet higher, back above 1. It’s like climate change denial, except it’s more immediately deadly, on a very personal level.

When Pete and Dud pitched that joke, the idea of people with their Rs blowing off was hilarious. Right now, it is not. The anti-lockdown mob aren’t serious. But could be deadly.

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