Months after the world has seemingly moved on from the Chinese coronavirus, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has declared that he will not rule out another lockdown being imposed on the British public.
Despite the damage done to the economy and the impact on the mental and physical health of the public, the British government will keep the option of locking down the country once again, the Prime Minister said.
In an interview with Conservative MPs Phillip Davies and Esther McVey on GB News on Friday, Mr Johnson said: “I want to avoid any such thing ever happening again and I can’t rule out something, I can’t say we wouldn’t be forced to do non-pharmaceutical interventions again of the kind we did.
“I think it would be irresponsible of any leader in any democracy to say that they’re going to rule out something that could save life, and I believe the things we did saved lives.”
Explaining his rationale, Mr Johnson said that a “new variant” could emerge, warning that there could be a strain of the Chinese coronavirus that impacts children more than previous mutations.
“I’m not going to take any options off the table, but I don’t think it will happen. We’re now in the phase, and this is the view of all the advisers I talk to, where the virus is losing its potency overall and we’ve got a massively vaccinated UK population,” he said.
The statement has drawn considerable backlash among the conservative-leaning commentariat in the United Kingdom, particularly in light of members of Mr Johnson’s own government being fined by the Metropolitan Police for violating their own lockdown rules in a series of boozy bashes held in Downing Street, home to the Prime Minister’s official residence.
Commentator Dominique Samuels said: “I actually dare him to try and impose that on the British people again after he and his staff broke the very rules they forced us all to follow. I dare him.”
Actor turned Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox added: “Didn’t comply last time. Wouldn’t comply if the hypocritical little toad tried it again. It would be amusing to see him try though.
“All he would achieve is waking more people up.”
While the Prime Minister attempted to use children as one of the potential reasons for another lockdown, youngsters are being revealed to have potentially been some of the principle victims of previous lockdowns.
According to the National Health Service (NHS), mental health problems soared among children in 2021 to one in six children in England, compared to one in nine in the pre-lockdown year of 2017. Girls between the ages of 11 and 16-years-old were impacted the most.
Warnings about the impact on children of diminished social contact and the climate of fear are longstanding, with a 2021 report finding that the number of pre-teens committing self-harm had doubled over six years ago.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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