HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock has urged Brits to “isolate now” in order to safely spend Christmas with grandparents and elderly relatives.
Christmas is just ten days away and festive bubbles are allowed from December 23 for five days.
Ministers and health experts alike have warned the public to heed caution when seeing family and friends over the Christmas period.
Mr Hancock has advised that people stay vigilant in the run up to Christmas and experts previously stated that you should isolate for 10 days before spending the festive period with old or vulnerable relatives.
The Health Secretary said: “If you are planning to meet up with loved ones at Christmas then being careful now, two weeks ahead and making sure you minimise the chance of catching the disease and passing it on is the right thing to do.”
He added: “The best thing you can do if you want to see elderly relatives at Christmas is to be extremely careful now about who you see, and that’s the way to see loved ones.”
RESPECT THE RULES
He added that everyone should minimise their social contact to stop the spread of the disease.
“We must stay vigilant. Around one in three people don’t display any symptoms at all but can still spread it.
“We should never lose site of our own roles in this, our personal responsibility to respect the rules where we are.”
Mr Hancock made the comments last night during a Downing Street press conference after it was announced that London and the neighbouring counties would go into Tier 3 restrictions.
Under plans agreed across the UK, up to three households will be able to form a “Christmas bubble” and meet between 23 and 27 December.
Mr Hancock added: “It’s important that all of us are cautious ahead of Christmas, and very careful in terms of the contact we have especially with people that we know are vulnerable to this disease.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure we follow that, we understand why people want to get together with their families and loved ones.”
He added that the message around Christmas was “clear”, but said it must be done in a careful way and that “people understand that”.
This morning Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay urged people to “do the minimum” seeing family and friends this Christmas, a stark watering down of the Government’s message.
Mr Barclay told Sky News: “All things are always kept under review.”
And he added: “There’s a balance to be struck here. Many families haven’t seen people all year. But people shouldn’t misinterpret what the guidelines say – where they want to see each other they won’t be criminalised for doing so.
“Families will make their own judgements.”
PERIOD OF RISK
Medical journals this morning urged the government to curb Christmas plans that they said could lead to further loss of life.
In a historic plea the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and Health Service Journal (HSJ) called for the “rash” decision to relax social distancing measures over Christmas to be scrapped.
The warning, authored by HSJ editor Alastair McLellan and BMJ editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee said: “When Government devised the current plans to allow household mixing over Christmas it had assumed the Covid-19 demand on the NHS would be decreasing.
“But it is not, it is rising, and the emergence of a new strain of the virus has introduced further potential jeopardy.
“Members of the public can and should mitigate the impact of the third wave by being as careful as possible over the next few months. But many will see the lifting of restrictions over Christmas as permission to drop their guard.”
During the press conference last night Professor Chris Whitty said we still needed to bring rates down.
Prof Whitty has previously advised people not to hug their relatives during Christmas celebrations.
He said people needed to be “very, very careful and in particular, incredibly careful if they’re around people who are vulnerable”.
Prof Whitty said Christmas was a “period of risk and that’s the reason we want people to take it very seriously and go no further than they have to.”
He added that the vaccine would not give us a “way out” over the Christmas period.
Mr Hancock last night added that “it’s incredibly important that people are careful and cautious especially ahead of Christmas and especially if they want to see loved ones at Christmas”.
