U.K.’s ‘Stay Alert’ Slogan Criticized Before Johnson Speech

(Bloomberg) --

The U.K. government came under criticism for changing its advice to the public hours before Boris Johnson addresses the nation later Sunday, with only limited changes to the lockdown expected.

“There will be no grand reopening of the economy tonight,” Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told the BBC. Instead, the government is adopting a more “nuanced” message to encourage businesses back to work, even as it still wants “people to stay at home as much as possible,” he said.

Still, some officials said the new advice to “stay alert” versus its earlier message to “stay home” was confusing. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called the slogan “vague and imprecise,” and said her administration would be sticking to its guidance for people to stay at home.

“We are still at such a fragile stage in Scotland that the evidence shows it’s too soon to change our messaging,” Sturgeon told reporters in Edinburgh on Sunday. “I have asked Boris Johnson to make it clear in his speech that he’s speaking for England only.” Earlier, she said the first she heard of the change was in the newspapers.

The U.K. reported another 269 Covid-19 deaths on Sunday, bringing its total to 31,855, the most in Europe. That leaves Johnson with little room to maneuver as he charts a course out of the lockdown in an announcement due at 7 p.m.

The cautious approach will potentially anger members of Johnson’s Conservative Party pushing for a swift end to the lockdown that has damaged Europe’s second-biggest economy. The government is caught between demands to get more people back to work and off the state’s furlough scheme and the reality that infection rates in the community make a second wave of the pandemic a very real risk.

‘Dangerous’

“This is the dangerous bit,” The Sun on Sunday cited Johnson as telling the newspaper. “You have very few options on the climb up -- but it’s on the descent you have to make sure you don’t run too fast, lose control and stumble.”

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A scientific adviser to the government said last week there are about 20,000 new cases of coronavirus every day across the U.K., far higher than the official number of about 4,000 revealed by Covid-19 testing in recent days.

“We’re not going to take risks with the public,” Jenrick told Sky News earlier. “We should be staying home as much as possible but when we do go to work and go about our business we need to remain vigilant, we need to stay alert.”

Johnson is also expected to unveil a virus alert system, similar to how the government currently communicates terrorism threat levels, in Sunday’s address. The five-level alerts range from one (green), which would enable life to return to normal, to five (red). England is on the verge of improving from level four to three, which indicates that the Covid-19 infection rate isn’t increasing significantly, Johnson is expected to say.

The government will also announce long-awaited measures to deal with people flying or sailing into the country. Travelers, including Britons returning from abroad, will be told to self-isolate for 14 days as part of the government’s plans to try to avoid a second peak.

Researchers from Imperial College London, who are advising the government’s response, warned ministers last week deaths could top 100,000 if restrictions are eased too quickly, the Times newspaper reported on Sunday.

‘Common Sense’

Former Brexit Secretary David Davis welcomed the new slogan and said the government should rely more on people’s “common sense” rather than on “blanket rules.” But he slammed the government’s reliance on Imperial’s modeling, which triggered the lockdown in March when it warned of 250,000 deaths.

“It’s a model that has now been widely criticized, badly constructed, full of errors and essentially for not being reliable,” Davis told Sky News. “Just because a number comes out of a black box doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Meanwhile Cambridge University professor David Spiegelhalter criticized the government’s use of data in its daily press conference, calling it “number theater” that under reports cases and deaths in the U.K. He estimated a minimum of 3.5 million people have contracted Covid-19, and said it’s “extraordinary” scientists are still waiting for sufficient testing to be done to provide an accurate picture.

In what may be a case of all publicity is good publicity, the hashtag #StayAlert was trending on Twitter in the U.K. along with mock-ups of the new green and yellow branding replacing a red sign. Irvine Welsh, the Scottish author of “Trainspotting” was among those poking fun.

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