UK clamps down to fight virus, but confusion still reigns
Jill Lawless | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 7 months AGO
A man walking a dog past graffiti with the writing, "Wash Your Hands, We're In This Together", on the Lower Newtownards Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Tuesday March 24, 2020. The government has restricted personal movements, asking the public to only leave your home if an essential worker, or for short exercise or collecting food. For some people the COVID-19 coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, but for others it can cause severe illness. (Liam McBurney / PA via AP)
A platform of the Bank Underground tube station, that would normally be very busy with commuters in London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. The highly contagious COVID-19 coronavirus can cause mild symptoms, but for some it can cause severe illness including pneumonia and requiring hospital admission..(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
People keep a distance as they walk dogs on the Long Walk at Windsor Castle, England Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Streets are mostly empty and Theatres are closed in the normally busy theatreland area of central London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions on businesses and public gatherings due to the spread of the coronavirus. The highly contagious COVID-19 coronavirus can cause mild symptoms, but for some it can cause severe illness including pneumonia..(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Construction workers wearing face masks seen through safety fencing work on a site near London Bridge in London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and gatherings, health workers begged for more gear, saying they felt like "cannon fodder." For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
People use social distancing as they queue to enter a supermarket in Windsor, England Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Messages of support are seen in a shop window in Windsor, England Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
A shopper walks up an empty street near Windsor Castle in Windsor, England Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
General view of the normally busy, but now deserted Lendenhall Market, in central London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions on businesses and gatherings, health workers begged for more gear, saying they felt like "cannon fodder." For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A man wears a face mask at the entrance of Piccadilly Circus tube station in London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and social gatherings. The highly contagious COVID-19 coronavirus can cause mild symptoms, but for some it can cause severe illness including pneumonia. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
A man wears a mask as he walks through London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and social gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, but for some it can cause more severe illness. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
An employee of a nearby takeaway restaurant rolls a cigarette as he has a break sitting on the pavement near Piccadilliy Circus in central London, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus on businesses and social gatherings. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
LONDON (AP) — Confusion rippled through Britain on Tuesday, a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a three-week halt to all non-essential activity to fight the spread of the new coronavirus.
Streets were empty but some subways were full. Hairdressers were closed but construction sites were open. People in romantic relationships wondered whether they could see their boyfriends or girlfriends if they weren't living together.
The government has ordered most stores to close, banned gatherings of more than two people who don't live together and told everyone apart from essential workers to leave home only to buy food and medicines or to exercise.
“You must stay at home,” Johnson said in a somber address to the nation on Monday evening.
But even as the U.K. recorded its biggest single-day increase in COVID-19 deaths, commuters crowded onto London subway trains Tuesday, amid confusion about who was still allowed to go to work.
As of Tuesday, Britain had 8,077 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 422 deaths, 87 more deaths than a day earlier.
Julia Harris, a London nurse, said her morning train to work was full.
“I worry for my health more on my commute than actually being in the hospital," she said.
Sporting goods chain Sports Direct said its shops would remain open, arguing that selling exercise equipment was an essential service. It reversed course after an outcry from the public and officials.
Many building sites remained open, with construction workers among those crowding onto early-morning subways.
Electrician Dan Dobson said construction workers felt “angry and unprotected,” but felt they had to keep working.
"None of them want to go to work, everyone is worried about taking it home to their families,” he said. "But they still have bills to pay, they still have rent to pay, they still have to buy food.”
Authorities sent mixed messages. British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak defended keeping construction sites open, insisting it could be done safely. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, however, said construction sites should close unless the building work was “essential.”
Some closed voluntarily. Construction was halted on London’s huge Crossrail train project, and home builder Taylor Wimpey stopped work on all its sites.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan implored employers: "Please support your staff to work from home unless it's absolutely necessary. Ignoring these rules means more lives lost.”
Many families were also confused by the new rules.
After Johnson said people should not mingle outside of their household units, separated parents asked whether their children could still travel between their homes. Cabinet minister Michael Gove initially said children should not move between households, before clarifying that it was permitted.
As for couples who don't cohabitate, England's deputy chief medical officer, Jenny Harries, said "they should test the strength of their relationship” and decide whether to move in together.
“What we do not want is people switching in and out of households. ... Test really carefully your strength of feeling," Harries advised.
The restrictions are the most draconian ever imposed by a British government in peacetime. But they don’t go as far as lockdowns in Italy and France, where people need a document authorizing their movements.
The government said police would have powers to break up illegal gatherings and fine people who flout the rules. But some expressed doubts about whether the lockdown could be enforced.
Britain has lost thousands of police officers during a decade of public spending cuts by Conservative-led governments. Johnson has promised to recruit 20,000 more police officers, but those efforts are still in the early stages. Unlike some other European countries, Britons do not carry ID cards, another factor complicating enforcement efforts.
"There is no way really that the police can enforce this using powers. It has got to be because the public hugely support it,” Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, told the BBC.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever or coughing. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. Hospitals in Italy and Spain have been overwhelmed by the critically ill.
Intensive care departments in London, the hardest-hit city, are being inundated with COVID-19 patients. Johnson warned that the National Health Service could be overwhelmed within weeks unless people took the lockdown seriously.
The government said Tuesday that more than 11,000 retired doctors and nurses had answered a call to return temporarily to work. It also sought a quarter of a million volunteers to help deliver food and medicine to vulnerable people who have been told to quarantine themselves for 12 weeks.
And British troops have been drafted in to convert London's Excel convention center into a 500-bed hospital by next week.
Critics say British authorities have acted too slowly to avert an Italy-scale crisis. Schools were closed less than a week ago, and pubs and restaurants were only shuttered on Friday.
Andrea Collins, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the new restrictions were welcome but didn’t go far enough.
"I think we need permits across controlled areas to go to a workplace,” she said. “Home working is hard for many but it is possible, we just need to adapt to a new way of being.”
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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Pan Pylas contributed to this story,