From the perspective of someone living in Wales, the timing is particularly unfortunate as just when the Welsh lockdown ends, the English one starts (give or take a day or two), so my punting lockdown is effectively going to last six weeks.
The Welsh government have clearly said that the numbers won't have come down by the time the Welsh firebreak ends, as it takes longer than that for the effect to feed through. Those going into hospital at the end of the firebreak will have been infected well before the firebreak started, for example. But they have given a clear commitment that the firebreak is ending, regardless. I saw no such clear commitment from Boris, which is slightly worrying. However, he will be in so much pressure to lift it that I doubt it will get extended unless the numbers are truly awful.
A point made by several epidemiologists is that in a pandemic situation, you can never act too fast. Boris and co have proved this, their constant dithering at every stage has just made things exponentially worse. Boris made it clear at the time that he did not agree with the Welsh government imposing a two week lockdown, but his prevarication has meant he has now had to impose a four week lockdown on the English. Well done that man.
When the Welsh government imposed its firebreak, Boris point blank refused to extend furlough to cover it. However, now that he has had to lockdown the English, magically the money has been found to extend furlough. I hope the Tories aren't expecting many Welsh votes at the next election.
Regional lockdowns were basically a way of keeping London open for business. However, at the point when London was on the verge of being put into top-tier, magically local lockdowns are dropped, and we are back to a national lockdown with full furlough. Can't have Londoners subjected to the measly compensation that Northerners were expected to put up with, can we?
