Dr Hilary has called for more ‘draconian’ measures to crack down on the spread of coronavirus, supporting a second national lockdown.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to put in place a stricter three-tier lockdown across the country as the rate infection continues to soar daily. Another 310 people died from Covid-19 yesterday while a further 24,701 cases were confirmed.
Supporting the reports of a second lockdown across England, Dr Hilary said on Thursday’s Good Morning Britain: ‘I’m afraid I do because we’re not adequately and quickly enough controlling the number of cases, they’re still rising.
‘So yes we’ve put some places into tier 3, and the situation would have been worse if we hadn’t done that. People are saying, well it hasn’t made any difference, it would be worse if we hadn’t done that.’
He continued: ‘Other areas, we’ve still got fairly lax regulations that allow six people from different households to get together.
‘That was never going to be, in my opinion, a very sensible way forward. And unless we stop different households getting together, the R-rate is going to increase and the situation’s going to get worse.
‘Yes, we have to be more draconian and I’m sure people will understand in order to get control of the virus, this is what has to be done.’
Criticising the government’s claims to have a vaccine up and running soon and increased testing, Dr Hilary said: ‘The trouble is this government has been guilty of over promising…
‘Who’s going to be doing all these tests? We’re talking about millions of tests all the time.
‘I think to over promise it when it’s not already there is a mistake.’
Good Morning Britain continues weekdays at 6am on ITV.
