COVID-19: Dire warning as UK marks year since first lockdown

The UK held a minute’s silence for those who died from COVID-19 amid warnings another surge is “definitely” approaching as a third wave batters Europe.

The UK held a minute’s silence on Tuesday to mark a year since its first COVID-19 lockdown as leaders warned that a third wave tearing through Europe would hit Britain.

People across the country stopped work to honour more than 126,000 who have died from the virus in the pandemic-battered nation and six million people who have been bereaved.

The moment of mourning came as England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty said there would “definitely” be another surge and Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that the resurgence of coronavirus in Europe “will wash up on our shores”.

Nurses at vaccination centres were seen standing with heads bowed as the Queen sent flowers to the hospital where Prince Philip had heart surgery with a note reflecting on the “grief and loss felt by so many”.

Staff from the Glasgow Royal Infirmary gather outside the hospital for a minute’s silence on March 23. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the past year had been “one of the most difficult in our country’s history” and had “taken a huge toll on us all” as he offered his condolences to those had lost loved ones.

The minute’s silence at 12pm local time came after the UK began slowly easing restrictions, with schools reopening on March 8 and people permitted to gather in groups of six from March 29. Pubs and restaurants will reopen from April 12.

But Mr Johnson warned on Monday that the third wave wreaking havoc in continental Europe will “wash up on our shores”. He said Britain should be “under no illusion” that it will not “feel effects” of the growing case numbers across Europe, amid fears that travel plans for the European summer could be ruined.

Staff of a Marie Curie hospice in Penarth, Wales, pay their respects to more than 126,000 dead in the UK. Picture: Polly Thomas/Getty Images

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UK health secretary Matt Hancock said it was “too early to know” whether international travel would be allowed on May 17, the earliest date that was given for its potential resumption in Mr Johnson’s roadmap for leaving lockdown. But a junior health minister in the House of Lords suggested that travellers could face mandatory two-week quarantine for visiting Europe.

Those who leave the country without a reasonable excuse could face $8983 fines under new virus laws that will be taken to the vote on Thursday.

Professor Whitty said it was a “sad day” as he told the Annual Public Health Conference 2021 on Tuesday that there would “definitely” be another UK surge in the coming months.

“I’m just gonna make an obvious point which is that the path from here on in does look better than the last year, but there are going to be lots of bumps and twists in the road from here on, and there will definitely be another surge at some point whether it’s before winter, in the next winter,” he said.

“Variants are going to cause problems, there will be stockouts of vaccines and no doubt there will be multiple problems at a national level but also at a local level — school outbreaks, prison outbreaks, all those things that people are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.”

Prof Whitty said that for many people, “physical or mental wellbeing have been very badly affected”, adding: “So there’s going to be a long rain shadow to COVID.”

He emphasised the “very big job” of preventing “lifelong” problems related to lockdowns, including increased deprivation and health issues other than COVID.

The pandemic and three nationwide lockdowns in England — the most recent began on January 4 — have had an alarming impact on mental as well as physical health.

Text helpline Shout 85258 saw 60 per cent more texts — a total of 81,256 — this January and February than the same time last year, Sky News reported.

A survey of 4,250 people by the Mental Health Foundation found loneliness in the UK had worsened since the first lockdown, with one in 10 people saying they felt lonely in March 2020 compared with one in four in February 2021.

In young adults, the loneliness rate doubled, with nearly half of those surveyed saying they felt lonely in the past month. Prescriptions of antidepressants by GPs were 10 per cent higher in December 2020 compared with 2019, according to data from OpenPrescribing.

UK residents have been encouraged to stand on doorsteps at 8pm local time with phones, candles and torches to signify a “beacon of remembrance”.