Coronavirus: Boris Johnson tightens screws with ‘wartime’ restrictions

Boris Johnson has unleashed a $663bn stimulus and support package to keep the economy going during the virus crisis.

A barman cuts a lonely figure at his near-empty pub in central London after the government announced stringent social distancing advice. Picture: AFP

Boris Johnson said his MPs were preparing like a “wartime government’’, unleashing a minimum £330bn ($663bn) stimulus and support package to keep the economy going during the coronavirus crisis, which has already claimed 71 lives across the country.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Wednesday AEDT announced £330bn of loans to businesses — at indeterminate rates — a scale of support unimaginable only days ago.

To reassure companies that everything was being done to save their revenues from going off the cliff, Mr Sunak unveiled the unprecedented economic plan and said “we are all in this together’’.

The bailout represents 15 per cent of GDP and dwarfs the £135bn handed out during the 2008 global financial crisis.

The British measures are similar in scale to the €300bn ($550bn) French stimulus package and the €200bn injection in the Spanish economy, both announced on Tuesday.

“This is not a time for ideology or orthodoxy,’’ Mr Sunak said. “This is a time to be bold.”

Mr Sunak was at the daily briefing with the Prime Minister, who was questioned about his joke on a conference call to big business leaders where he referred to the need to build ventilators as “Operation Last Gasp”.

Mr Johnson responded: “All business wants an end to suffering, and that’s why we are working incredibly hard in next few weeks. We only have a few weeks to build ventilators, to build thousands, and British industry is responding to this challenge with incredible ­energy and determination.

“We know how to beat it, and we know that if as a country we follow the scientific advice that has been given, we will beat it.

“We are engaged in a war against the disease which we have to win.”

However, chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said a death rate of 20,000 would be a good outcome, and achievable only if the strict measures announced on Tuesday were followed.

The advice was to avoid pubs, clubs and restaurants and any ­social gatherings; and if aged 70 or over, or pregnant, to self-quarantine for the next 12 weeks, which is designed to reduce the impact of the virus by about 50 per cent.

Stricter measures such as the home isolation for non-essential workers in France, Italy and Spain, and the closure of schools may be introduced in Britain in coming days or weeks.

Denmark announced all restaurants, bars, cafes, night clubs, gyms and tattoo parlours would be shut for a fortnight and that gatherings of more than 10 people would be banned.

In Italy, infections jumped to 31,500, with 2503 deaths, accounting for a third of the global death toll. Cases in Spain, the fourth-most infected country, rose by more than 2500 in one day to 11,826.

Sir Patrick said the new steps to try to suppress the numbers of British cases would reduce the number of deaths significantly.

‘’Every year in seasonal flu the number of deaths is thought to be about 8000 excess deaths,” he said. “So if we can get this down into numbers of 20,000 and below, that’s a good outcome in terms of where we would hope to get to with this outbreak.”

“I mean it’s still horrible, I mean that’s still an enormous amount of deaths and it’s still enormous pressure on the health service.’’

In Brussels, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said there had been “a unanimous and united approach” to the decision to prohibit most foreigners from entering the EU for 30 days.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said European leaders agreed in a conference call to the commission’s proposal for an entry ban to the bloc — along with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Britain — with “very, very limited exceptions”.

Germany will implement the decision immediately.

Additional reporting: AP