Cities could be treated differently to rural areas when lockdown restrictions are lifted, hints Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance
- Sir Patrick told MPs spread of coronavirus was different in different parts of UK
- He said densely populated places had ‘higher prevalence’ than in rural areas
- As a result it could be an option to treat them differently when lockdown is eased
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Cities and rural areas could be treated differently when coronavirus lockdown measures are eased, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser hinted today.
Sir Patrick Vallance told MPs that the spread of the deadly disease was different in different parts of the UK.
He said ‘densely-populated places have a higher prevalence than rural places’ and that means loosening restrictions could be tailored to each.
However, he suggested such an approach would not be without difficulties because regions would need to be carefully defined and the flow of people in and out would have to be monitored.
Boris Johnson is expected to renew the lockdown on Thursday before using an address to the nation on Sunday night to set out a lockdown exit strategy.
Sir Patrick Vallance, pictured at a Downing Street press conference on April 30, told MPs today that cities and rural areas could be treated differently when lockdown is eased
Downing Street is believed to want the whole of the UK to emerge from lockdown as one.
But it is thought Number 10 believes measures could be reimposed at a regional level if there were localised spikes in the number of new cases.
But Sir Patrick today suggested to the Health and Social Care Select Committee that it would be possible for different areas to be treated differently when rules are eased.
He said the ‘R’ rate of transmission is ‘potentially a bit variable across the country’ but not hugely different.
‘We know that cities and densely-populated places have a higher prevalence than rural places, so that is definitely the case and an option that could be considered is to think about whether measures could be done locally versus nationally,’ he said.
However, Sir Patrick said transport would be just one of the issues where problems could arise if the government adopted such an approach.
‘Once you go to a regional approach you effectively are saying that you are going to demarcate regions very carefully and you’ve got to control the flow between regions,’ he said.
‘But that is a possibility.’
Sir Patrick again reiterated that the ‘R’ number needs to be below one before lockdown measures can begin to be lifted.
He said the government’s current estimation of the value of ‘R’ remained at between 0.6 and 0.9.
He told the committee: ‘We will, I hope, get a better estimate once we can measure it more directly by measuring rates of infection in the community with large population-based surveys.
‘It needs to be below one, because as long as it’s below one that means that the epidemic is reducing.’