The government could stop people leaving their homes for exercise if too many people flout existing social distancing rules, for example by sunbathing in parks, the health secretary has said. Warning about the possibility of moves towards a fuller lockdown as seen in places such as France and Italy, Matt Hancock confirmed that under current rules, sitting or lying in parks was not permitted. “Sunbathing is against the rules that have been set out for important public health reasons,” Hancock, who has himself recently emerged from isolation after contracting the virus, told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show. “I wish I didn’t have to say this but I do because the whole country wants to come through this crisis.” Lambeth council in south London said Brockwell park would be closed on Sunday because so many people had sunbathed there on Saturday. “Despite clear advice, over 3,000 people spent today in Brockwell Park, many of them sunbathing or in large groups,” it tweeted on Saturday.
With sunny weather again expected across large parts of the country on Sunday, Hancock told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that people should be leaving home only for the four prescribed reasons – work as needed, buying food, for health reasons or for exercise – and he said the latter could be withdrawn if physical distancing was not being properly followed. “I think this example of exercise is a really important one, because we’ve said because of the positive benefits to your physical and your mental health that it’s OK to exercise on your own or with members of your own household,” he said. “But if the result of that is that too many people go out and flout the other rules because they say, ‘Well, if I can exercise then it’s fine for me to do other things,’ then I’m afraid we will have to take action. “So my message is really clear. If you don’t want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home then you’ve got to follow the rules, and the vast majority people are following the rules.”
On the target announced last week to massively increase testing for coronavirus to up to 100,000 per day by the end of April, Hancock said he was “absolutely determined that we get there” but urged caution. “It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to require an awful lot of people to put their shoulders to the wheel across the life sciences industry and the NHS,” he said. Hancock was backed by the newly elected Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who said his party would support either a ban on outdoor exercise or on non-essential work if it was needed to curb the spread of Covid-19. “Yes we would. We do have to take whatever steps are necessary,” said Starmer, who was announced as Jeremy Corbyn’s successor on Saturday after winning more than 56% of Labour members’ votes. “Social distancing, staying indoors, is really difficult for people. It’s particularly difficult if you don’t have a garden, if you’re in a flat. And I know there are a lot of people in overcrowded accommodation. But we’ve got to get through this,” he said.
However, Angela Rayner, who was elected as Labour’s deputy leader, sounded a more cautious note, telling the Sophy Ridge show: “It’s all right for people who’ve got big houses and huge back gardens to say that, but if you’re stuck in inadequate accommodation, you’ve got no back garden, nowhere to go, and you’re on top of each other, people should do social distancing, but also be reasonable and proportionate about that.” Starmer, who played down the idea of some form of national unity government, said he would “ask difficult questions” over coronavirus, but avoid “opposition for opposition’s sake”. Starmer said he had come to an arrangement with Boris Johnson to receive ministerial briefings on the virus, and wanted to be constructive. He added: “But asking those difficult questions matters. You can see that when difficult questions were asked on testing things began to move. The same thing with equipment on the frontline. Scrutiny is important here.”
Speaking earlier on the Marr show, Prof Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, one of the scientists whose modelling of the virus helped prompt the lockdown, said it was difficult to know when the measures might be eased as it depended on how quickly case numbers fell. “There is no point, having gone through this effort, in releasing a lockdown at a point where case numbers are still high and will resurge even faster than we have seen before,” he said. “We want case numbers to get to a low point where we can start substituting other measures for the most intrusive and economically costly aspects of the current lockdown.” Ferguson said it was also hard to predict the death toll in the UK but he believed these could be “anywhere between 7,000 or so up to a little over 20,000”.