Britons flocking to beaches ‘making a mockery’ of coronavirus strategy says Dr Hilary

‘How many of those people would have the much-vaunted smartphone app on the beach?’ asks TV physician

Scenes of Britons packed onto sunny beaches yesterday “make a mockery” of the government’s test-and-trace coronavirus strategy, TV doctor Hilary Jones has claimed.

The GP also suggested that images of Southend on Sea, Bournemouth and Brighton beaches filled with sunbathers showed why a swift end to lockdown was ill-advised.

He told Good Morning Britain: “That makes a mockery of test-and-trace right there, doesn’t it? How, if you test positive for Covid-19 and a contact tracer says, ‘Where’ve you been in the last few days?’, and you say, ‘I was on the beach at Bournemouth or Southend on Sea’, amongst those crowds, who do you know who was next to you?

“You can’t possibly trace those people, and that’s the problem. So when people start flouting the social-distancing rules and we go out of lockdown in this kind of way, you can’t trace those people.

“And how many of those people would have the much-vaunted smartphone app on the beach? They won’t take their phone because they don’t want it stolen, even if they have a phone and even if the app works as efficiently as they want it to.”

On Wednesday ministers were forced to admit that the NHS app would not be ready in time for the start of their contact-tracing programme on 1 June – when lockdown rules are set to be loosened further in England. Human tracers will start working first and the app “will come later in support”, junior health minister Lord Bethell said.

Thousands of people descended on UK beaches on Wednesday to soak up the sun with some allegedly driving from Manchester to Essex for a day out, sparking criticism of a widespread failure to maintain social distancing.

“The more I see of this, the more I fear we’re in for a second wave,” said a Southend councillor in a Facebook post. Matt Dent wrote: ”It’s people travelling from outside the borough – as far away as Manchester, from what I’ve heard – who seem to think lockdown is lifted, and Covid-19 is no longer a threat.

“I’ve had calls, messages, emails from people I represent who are frustrated that whilst they self-isolate and shield as they’ve been advised to do, the whole crisis is being prolonged by this sort of foolishness.”

In Scotland, where tight lockdown restrictions will remain in place until 28 May, Edinburgh’s Portobello beach was a popular destination for sunbathers breaking the rules. Ruth Davidson, the MSP, urged people not to throw away all their previous hard work “just because it’s a sunny day”.

The scenes came as research suggested more than half of young adults were no longer adhering strictly to the lockdown.

Experts from University College, London quizzed some 90,000 people and found that the proportion of adults maintaining “complete” compliance with government rules had fallen to below 60 per cent, from 70 per cent two weeks ago. Among younger adults the figure dipped below 50 per cent.

People also have less confidence in the government than previously, researchers discovered.

Additional reporting by Press Association