Caller urges lockdown lift: "UK is turning into a nanny state"

8 October 2020, 09:29

"UK is turning into a nanny state," says caller

This caller urged for the Government to "treat us like adults" and lift lockdown rules instead of turning the UK into a "nanny state."

The Government has announced £60 million for local councils and police forces to increase "Covid patrols" to ensure the public are abiding by Government restrictions.

William from Chelmsford said he "could see us turning into a nanny state" before conceding "I think we already are."

"Covid's been around in this country for seven months or so, you get the various lockdowns, we're now getting these so called Covid patrols - are they really working?" William said, telling Nick he did not think they were.

Nick cited a finding that for the 19 out of the 20 towns in the north that have gone under tougher restrictions, the measures had "no impact whatsoever."

Housing Secretary explains role of new Covid patrols

William said that his potentially controversial view is that the Government should approach this as "we are all adults...we know the situation, ease the restrictions."

Nick pointed out that this was the exact argument of the Great Barrington Declaration yesterday which saw over 4,000 top scientists worldwide sign a petition which called for lockdown restrictions to be lifted and a herd immunity strategy to be implemented.

"This Covid is not going to go away but I cannot see that local lockdowns are working at all," William said, "I think it needs to be put back open to the public of this country.

"We know that if we're going to go out, we risk catching something."

"There is absolutely no evidence many infections occur in restaurants"

The caller pointed out that the flu kills around 20,000 people each year, according to Public Health England data.

"I fully appreciate that Covid is a new illness that is out but I think if you take a step back and have a look at the overall situation and, again, across the world unfortunately there's been over a million people that have died which is a tragedy, but it's less than something like 0.001% of the population.

Nick agreed, pointing out this does not even include conditions like sepsis.