TONY Blair has called for a clear strategy to end the coronavirus lockdown as he said Britain was "too slow" in trying to suppress the outbreak of disease compared to other countries.
The former Prime Minister said the UK needed to be "ahead of the curve" as soon as medical and scientific conditions allowed it to emerge from the lockdown into a "new normal".
He explained: "There are two basic phases to tackling the Covid-19 crisis: suppression of the disease and managed revival of the economy. The 'normal' that we return to will be a new normal.
"The suppression is absolutely necessary to save lives and there will continue for some time to be a raft of rules and restrictions necessary to follow.
"But because of the immense collateral damage done by the lockdown - economic and health related - we must ensure that on easing the restrictions, we are fully prepared and ahead of the curve the moment that the medical and scientific advice allows us to start the process.
"In the suppression phase we can see with hindsight, that we were slow compared with the best of other countries.
"In this next phase, we must position Government to roll out the revival of the economy and as much of normal life as is possible, with efficiency and clarity of strategy."
The former premier was commenting as the Tony Blair Foundation for Global Change laid out an exit plan.
He called for mass testing "including the development of the community force" to help with the process.
Mr Blair also said that regarding personal protection equipment that "mask acquisition and production on a vast scale" was "essential" for the safety of frontline staff.
On the development of a vaccine, Mr Blair called for "utilisation of every means nationally and globally to identify those treatments which can reduce the severity of the disease".
Once new cases fell substantially, the UK could consider easing restrictions by opening schools first.
The Blair Foundation also suggested age segmentation with younger people at much lower risk being allowed to return to work sooner.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel