Dr Hilary warns ‘Christmas will not happen’ unless people change what they’re doing

Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Dr Hilary Jones warned that Christmas might not happen if we don’t change our ways. 

On the morning show, Dr Hilary said that the public has to take responsibility if they want to celebrate Christmas this year.

The update comes following Boris Johnson’s announcement last night, where he added he was ‘hopeful’ the festive season will still go head if testing can increase to 500,000 a day in the UK by the end of October.  

Hilary also spoke about Matt Hancock placing the blame on young people for the threat of the second wave. He said:  “When it comes to young people being blamed, I don’t think they should be blamed for the transmission of the virus.

“But, what they need to know is unless people behave responsibly there is a risk of jobs being lost and money being unavailable.”

He added: “The things that young people want to buy like their trainers, or their CDs, or their music, or go to venues – they’re not going to be able to do that unless everyone behaves in such a way that limits transmission and gets a handle on this.”

Continuing, Dr Hilary said: “If you look at what’s happening in France and especially in Spain, we have always been lagging behind what’s happening there – and it’s really worrying.

“9,000 cases were recorded in France last Friday and many more hospitalisations in Spain. We don’t want to be there. So, if we do our bit and just you know, do what we’re told for a bit actually then I think we will make some progress.”

Dr Hilary then spoke about the death rate, which has recently reached 30, an increase from two.

He said that the stats could rise despite the rate remaining small: “They were very small in January, they were very small in February and look what’s happened.

“41,000 people died so far plus, so we don’t want to be there again the virus hasn’t changed. Transmission is increasing, the R rate is going up, there will be an exponential rise so we need to make changes.”

He urged that if ‘everyone wants a nice Christmas’ we must ‘change what we’re doing’.

He said: “Whether we are going to get things back to normal at all by Christmas, I’m still hopeful, as I’ve said before, that in many ways we could be able to get some aspects of our lives back to normal by Christmas.”