Boris Johnson says it's our own fault if we face a second coronavirus lockdown – but he knows test and trace doesn’t work

Boris Johnson tells us that there ain't gonna be no second wave of Covid-19. Well, how does he know?

Every pandemic in history has had a second wave (if not more) and this one, for all our modern science, is just another plague. Observe what has been happening in Catalonia, in Texas, in Melbourne and elsewhere.

We still don’t know that much about the coronavirus, about how it has mutated and how transmissible it is in certain circumstances. It’s a moving, as well as deadly, target. The experts - that is to say, the government’s own scientists, who ministers are supposed to be guided by - certainly don’t rule out a second wave, and generally sound much more cautious than ministers.

Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser, and Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, believe the risk will be “very much greater” as we move towards Christmas and the new year - just when we think it’s safe to go out again. Vallance doesn't think the country should be asked to go back to the workplace, as the prime minister does; he wants us to carry on working from home for as long as it takes to get infections down. Johnson can’t wait for that, because he gets bored easily and because the infection rate appears stubbornly flat. So it is the prime minister who is forcing the pace: he wants to get back to something like normality by Christmas, virtually ending all restrictions just as the cold weather sets in and the moment of greatest danger, according to some, arrives.

Should that arise, our defences are not simply ready; as we have reported, test and trace isn’t working. In Blackburn with Darwen, one of the latest local authority areas to face a localised spike in infections, the system is failing to reach half the contacts identified by those infected with the virus.

Johnson is entitled to make his judgement and take into account the economy. A prolonged recession will cost lives, too. He seems to be a man with a taste for taking risks - whether that’s an early election, a no deal Brexit or inflating the national debt. His private life has, by all accounts, rarely been a tranquil affair.

But these risks, with another widespread Covid-19 outbreak, are being taken against expert public health advice, and with other people’s lives. “Whack-a-mole” is not a strategy that inspires much confidence.

Worse than that, even, is that Johnson wants to evade responsibility for all this - for the decisions the he alone ultimately takes - by shoving the blame onto the British people. His talk, more like a threat, about a fresh national lockdown if there is a second national wave of infections is his way of telling us it will all be our own fault if things go horribly wrong.

He compares the prospect of a second lockdown to the use of nuclear weapons, so that if ill-informed citizens make a collective error on Covid-19 they’ll be punished with another shutdown - maybe this time without such a generous furlough scheme and other business support. If local councils, similarly, fail to control local outbreaks, well then that’ll be their look out (even if it occurs because the nationally-designed test and trace system doesn’t work).

So, no, it won’t be the prime minister’s fault for opening up the offices, the pubs and the football grounds and abandoning adequate social distancing. It will be ours, for not using our common sense and following the government’s remaining (incomprehensible) guidance and guessing the right way to go.

On the return to work, rather than the government giving clear guidance based on top scientific advice, it’ll be up to employers and staff to work things out and balance the risks between themselves, in a quite amateurish way. Which is fine, until they get it wrong. And if they do get it wrong it won’t be Boris Johnson’s fault and he’s not going to admit liability.

Because at the end of all this, no matter how bad things get, the Conservatives will still have a poll lead over Labour, and Boris Johnson will still have his job.

Won’t he?

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