‘Lives at risk’ warning as Tory anger grows over Dominic Cummings

Lives may be put at risk if people refuse to follow public health advice in the wake of Dominic Cummings “breaching” lockdown rules, senior Tories warned today.

They spoke out as the Government told people across the country they must isolate for 14 days if they are informed they have come into contact with someone with coronavirus.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock stressed this was people’s “civic duty” in the battle against Covid-19 as “test and trace” came into force today ahead of other restrictions being relaxed.

But MPs are worried Mr Cummings’s conduct will undermine this crucial message. As the row rumbled on despite Boris Johnson’s efforts to close it down:

Other developments include:

• Mr Hancock said there were up to about 9,000 new Covid cases a day, with around 2,000 of them being confirmed by positive tests.

• A new poll showed the damage to the Government and to Boris Johnson from the Cummings affair.

• Cycle lanes are to be installed in Oxford Street, with pavements widened, as part of moves to boost London’s economic recovery.

Mr Cummings insists he did not flout the rules by travelling from his London home to a cottage on his parents’ farm estate in County Durham during the lockdown in late March. He argues he acted responsibly in doing what was best for his four-year-old son as his sister and niece would be able to support them if necessary.

After recovering from coronavirus, he drove about 30 miles on Easter Sunday, his wife’s birthday, to the beauty spot of Barnard Castle and back, a trip he said was to test his eyesight so that he was sure he could safely return to London for work. North Dorset Tory MP Simon Hoare believes the storm sparked by his behaviour is already weakening the public health messages.

“We are already seeing it,” the chairman of the Commons Northern Ireland committee told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Beauty spots in Dorset this Bank Holiday weekend and indeed during this half-term week, great snaking queues of cars waiting to get into car parks, beaches full, beauty spots very busy.

“People are annoyed ... they see nothing exceptional in the circumstances that Mr Cummings set out before us in the Rose Garden.”

Asked whether he feared that as a result of that anger and of lowered appetite to follow public advice, the virus may spread further and lives may be lost, he added: “That has to be a risk.

“Let’s pray that it does not happen.”

He added that if the R rate started to go up and the brakes needed to be reapplied “then it has to be surely a legitimate fear based upon what so many thousands of people up and down the country are saying that they will not abide either in whole or in part to any new lockdown regime”.

Former defence minister Andrew Murrison also voiced his concerns. “Please, please don’t let the Cummings episode damage Test and Trace .. Lives and return to normal depend on full engagement,” he tweeted.

Read more

Lockdown to be reviewed as virus test and trace gets under way- LIVE

Two Fulham players test positive for coronavirus

Meet-up Monday: Joy as virus lockdown curbs to be relaxed

Grandmother, 103, celebrates Covid-19 recovery with a cold beer