The government is bracing itself for a second wave of coronavirus. Everyone knew the autumn and winter would be more difficult than July and August. But what is depressing ministers is how new restrictions have had to be imposed before the summer is even out. ‘It is going to be a long, hard autumn,’ warns one minister intimately involved in this effort.
In many ways this country is better prepared for a second wave than it was for the first. Policy-makers know more about the virus and how it spreads, doctors are better prepared to treat it, the government is better organised than it was before, has better data and significantly more testing capacity. In Whitehall, they expect these changes to be put to the test very soon. ‘The good news is that we have built an early warning system. The bad news is that it is going off,’ is how one figure in Downing Street sums up the situation.
Politically, though, a second wave will be much more difficult for the government. With the first wave, there was a rally-round-the-flag effect. The government’s approval rating shot up to over 50 per cent, the Tories had a 20-point lead in the polls and there was huge goodwill towards Boris Johnson when he ended up in hospital. Voters were forgiving of government mistakes; there was a mature acceptance that errors were bound to be made in handling a new virus about which so little was known. The public obeyed the Prime Minister’s instructions with more intensity than Whitehall modellers had expected. The government and the Bank of England had enough room for manoeuvre to deploy massive amounts of fire power to stave off financial collapse and insulate voters from the worst economic effects of the pandemic. There was also a great sense of national solidarity, exemplified by that Thursday night clapping.
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