The NHS has produced four Easter-themed adverts instructing the British public to stay home this weekend as fears that people will flout strict lockdown rules to enjoy 25C weather in parts of the country intensify.
One black-and-white campaign depicts a young girl wearing a rabbit ear headband and eating a chocolate egg with her mother, while a caption underneath states ‘Happy, Safe Easter – Stay Home This Weekend’.
Two posters show Easter eggs – coloured eggs lying in a basket in one, and chocolate eggs resting standing up in the other – urging Britons to ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ or ‘Stay Home This Weekend’.
A fourth and final campaign portrays a father and daughter playing with LEGO-type blocks with the caption ‘Happy Easter, Make The Most Of Your Weekend At Home’ running under the bright picture.
The four Easter-themed adverts come as Britain recorded 881 more coronavirus-related deaths today, taking the national fatality total to 7,978 as its coronavirus crisis rumbles on yet another week.
Today, 4,344 more positive tests pushed the number of patients, past and present, to 65,077. The grim tally is considerably smaller than the devastating 938 announced yesterday. However, the number represents the second biggest surge since the pandemic took over nearly six weeks ago.
NHS England announced 765 more fatalities in its hospitals among patients aged between 24 and 103, taking England’s total to 7,248, and 116 deaths were announced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Office for National Statistics is believed to produce more reliable Covid-19 figures, while the Department of Health and Social Care’s daily updates are not those confined to new cases in the last 24 hours.
There have been cases where death figures published by the Department of Health occurred days or even weeks prior, The Times reports. This is owing to a delay by independent hospital trusts to report said figures.
Meanwhile, the Government is coming under huge public pressure to show that its lockdown policy, which is causing massive economic harm already, can limit or curtail the spread of the disease.
The British public are being told to home this Easter as police around the country warned they were ready to fine those who flouted the rules – or rummage through the trolleys of suspected non-essential shoppers.
In another tumultuous day in Britain’s coronavirus crisis:
- Boris Johnson is no longer in intensive care, but remains in London’s St Thomas’, No10 confirmed;
- Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the PM, read the riot act at a No10 press conference today, telling people to stay indoors until the outbreak peak had subsided;
- A respected think-tank has warned that a million people could end up with long-term health conditions as a result of the economic hit from coronavirus lockdown;
- The Bank of England has extended the government’s Ways and Means provision – effectively its overdraft;
- New figures show the economy had effectively flatlined before the coronavirus crisis hit with 0.1 per cent growth in the three months to February;
- A bitter row has erupted between the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and other experts over whether lockdown measures had been modelled too late in the crisis;
- MPs have been offered an extra £10,000 in expenses to help them and staff work from home;
- EU officials have accused the UK Government of being in ‘fantasy land’ by insisting the Brexit transition period cannot be extended beyond December.
One black-and-white campaign depicts a young girl wearing a rabbit ear headband and eating a chocolate egg with her mother, while a caption underneath states ‘Happy, Safe Easter – Stay Home This Weekend’
Two posters show Easter eggs – coloured eggs lying in a basket in one, and chocolate eggs resting standing up in the other – urging Britons to ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ or ‘Stay Home This Weekend’
A fourth and final campaign portrays a father and daughter playing with LEGO-type blocks with the caption ‘Happy Easter, Make The Most Of Your Weekend At Home’ running under the bright picture
Two posters show Easter eggs – coloured eggs lying in a basket in one, and chocolate eggs resting standing up in the other – urging Britons to ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ or ‘Stay Home This Weekend’
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Boris Johnson, said it was still too soon for ministers to begin lifting the strict social distancing rules introduced last month.
Mr Raab said they could not begin to start looking again at the measures until the end of next week. His warning came amid fears that crowds will flock to beaches and beauty spots this Easter weekend.
At the daily No10 press conference, the Foreign Secretary acknowledged that it was hard for people hoping to go out and be with their families over Easter, but told them to show restraint.
‘Unfortunately right now we just can’t do those sorts of things and I am really sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It’s been almost three weeks and we’re starting to see the impact of the sacrifices we’ve all made.
‘But the deaths are still rising and we haven’t yet reached the peak of the virus. So it’s still too early to lift the measures that we put in place. We must stick to the plan and we must continue to be guided by the science.’
Mr Raab was speaking after chairing a meeting of the Government’s Cobra civil contingencies committee to consider how it would proceed with the three-week review, due next week, of the lockdown rules.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured clapping for NHS staff today), who is deputising for Boris Johnson, said it was still too soon for ministers to begin lifting the strict social distancing rules introduced last month
A road sign advising drivers to Stay Home, Don’t Travel during the Easter weekend on the M80 near Banknock
Staff from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London join the salute to local heroes during Thursday’s nationwide Clap for Carers NHS initiative to applaud frontline NHS workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic
Police officers stand outside the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London to join the salute to local heroes during Thursday’s nationwide Clap for Carers NHS initiative to applaud NHS workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic
Members of the emergency services on the River Thames near St Thomas’ Hospital in Westminster, central London
He said the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies would be looking at the evidence but it would not be possible to say any more until next week.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, said measures were ‘breaking transmission’ of the disease with signs of a ‘flattening off’ in the numbers of new cases and hospital admissions.
However he warned the numbers of deaths would continue to rise for a ‘few weeks’ and that it was too soon to relax social-distancing.
‘It is incredibly important that we continue to do what we are doing,’ he said.
The chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said that while the numbers admitted to intensive care had been doubling every three days, that had now slowed. ‘This is really now becoming not quite flat, but the doubling time is now six or more days in almost everywhere in the country and extending in time,’ he said.
Fears that Britons will flout lockdown rules to flock to beaches and beauty spots this warm weekend led to a leading hospital chief admitting to being ‘nervous’ that people will put undue pressure on the NHS.
Dr David Rosser, chief executive of University Hospitals Birmingham, urged people to stick to the rules and not be ‘falsely reassured’ about the apparent effectiveness of measures to date.
There are fears that good weather will lead to scores of Britons flouting lockdown rules (pictured, Richmond Park)
Police patrol Sefton Park in Liverpool, moving people on from park benches and sunbathing on the fields
Joggers are seen running through a crowded Battersea Park, central London, amid the coronavirus lockdown
He said there was ‘something deep in the psyche of people wanting to go out on a bank holiday weekend’.
‘So I guess that’s what we’re most nervous about, that people are falsely reassured this is almost over,’ he said.
It comes as health chiefs said the lockdown appeared to be ‘having an impact’ on infection rates.
Dr Rosser also said it was now looking likely the peak in patients needing ventilation would be ‘significantly lower than we thought’, adding the trust currently had ‘about 100’ ventilators unused.
He added: ‘At the moment all those projected peaks are well within our capacity within the West Midlands.’
Dr Rosser, who runs a trust that treats two million patients, said: ‘We’ve got significantly more ventilator capacity than we are predicting we would need.’
That was where the Birmingham Nightingale Hospital would come into play, Dr Rosser added, ‘to absorb that peak in ward beds’ and allow the region to ‘avoid the dreadful scenes we saw in Italy’.
Some people did travel to tourists hotspots today, but there was no mass Easter getaway. Road traffic levels were similar to those seen in the past week, indicating that most people stayed at home on what is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year for leisure travel.
Data published by satellite navigation company TomTom showed there was no spike in congestion in Britain’s biggest cities – including Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Manchester.
The scorching temperature is too tempting for some people who are pictured sunbathing in Battersea Park
A police officer approaches a man using a play area at a park in Northampton as police announce they are toughening up
People out walking on Beach Head amid glorious weather during the coronavirus lockdown and raging global pandemic
Despite surfing been banned in Itlay, Spain and France the water sport hasn’t been explicitly restricted in the UK
A lack of traffic on the M5 motorway near Bristol today, which would normally be busy, ahead of Easter weekend
At 5pm, the proportion of additional time required for journeys compared with free-flow conditions was between 15 per cent and 20 per cent for the five cities.
On the Thursday before last Easter, the figures ranged from 47 per cent in Cardiff to 76 per cent in Edinburgh.
Stephanie Leonard of TomTom said: ‘There’s definitely less traffic on the roads. There is quite a significant drop. Easter weekend is always a popular weekend to go away to visit friends and family or to go on holiday. It’s a completely different picture today.’
An AA survey carried out shortly before the coronavirus pandemic began suggested that around 26million leisure journeys by road had been planned for the Easter weekend. The vast majority of these trips are no longer taking place, but some people were caught not adhering to the lockdown guidance.
Cumbria Police said they caught several people travelling to the Lake District from outside the area.
These include a group who ‘decided it was too nice to stay in Bolton’ and two men from Yorkshire who ‘chose to head to Windermere for a spot of canoeing’. Those caught by police were encouraged to go home.
Annie Willey, brand manager of the Suffolk Coast Destination Management Organisation, said residents have seen an ‘awful lot’ of second home owners coming to the area, particularly in Aldeburgh and Southwold.
Ms Willey said anyone visiting over Easter was giving a ‘slap in the face’ to businesses which had battled ‘stress and pressure’ to close their doors because of the virus.
Rail companies Northern and TransPennine Express have joined forces with British Transport Police to launch a campaign reminding people it is ‘not acceptable’ to use services for leisure activities.
There will be an increased presence of police officers at popular stations over the weekend.
Many of the UK’s most popular visitor attractions are offering a variety of virtual Easter activities to keep people busy at home. These include experiments by the Science Museum, services at Durham Cathedral, cookery suggestions from Waddesdon Manor and a scavenger hunt from the National Trust.
The Met Office said the Easter weekend would get off to a warm start before gradually becoming cooler.
Temperatures could reach up to 25C in southern areas on Good Friday, with the risk of showers in parts of Scotland, the North East and the Midlands.
Even scuba divers were warned by the Coastguard not to venture out this Easter to prevent ‘avoidable strain’ being put on the NHS and emergency services.
The Coastguard issued the advice for leisure divers, sailors and other water users to adhere to Government rules to stay at home. Assistant director for HM Coastguard Pete Mizen said: ‘Leisure diving is not essential.
‘What divers need to remember is that if they get into difficulty and the Coastguard is called, that creates a greater degree of risk for us and our service. Every 999 call made could put our frontline responders at risk of Covid-19.
‘It would also put avoidable strain on the NHS services at a time when it could least afford it.
‘We’ve been told that decompression chambers are currently running at reduced levels during this challenging time. You might think nothing will go wrong while you’re out but there is no guarantee that it won’t.’
Earlier, with police forces across England and Wales making clear they would be stepping up measures over the weekend to ensure the rules were enforced, No10 said they were acting with the full support of Government.
Priti Patel urged police forces to act with ‘common sense’ during the coronavirus lockdown after suggestions that shoppers’ trolleys could be checked to make sure their purchases are essential
Boris Johnson’s spokesman said: ‘We have given them a job to do. They will use their own discretion about how they best do that job. The powers which we have given the police are there to save lives.
‘The police have our full backing and they have the public’s backing too.’
However there was a rebuke for Northamptonshire CC Nick Adderley after he suggested his force could mount road blocks and search shopping trolleys to check if people were going out to buy non-essential items.
Mr Adderley declared the ‘three-week grace period’ over, saying his force would consider roadblocks, marshalling supermarkets, and searching through shopping baskets and trolleys.
‘If things don’t improve, and we don’t get the compliance we would expect, then the next stage will be road blocks and it will be stopping people to ask why they are going, where they’re going,’ he said.
‘This is about reasonableness and if people are not reasonable in terms of the journeys and the trips they are taking, they are going to fall foul of the law.
