(momentous music)
- [Dominic] Africa?
- The problem is not that we were once in charge.
But, but, but, but that we are not in,
not in charge anymore, that's the problem.
- [Dominic] George Bush.
- A cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate,
who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy.
- [Dominic] Donald Trump.
- Err, the only reason
I would not visit some part of New York
is the very real risk of meeting Donald Trump.
- [Dominic] Islam.
- It's the most viciously sectarian of all the religions
in its heartlessness towards the unbelievers.
Islam's the problem.
- [Dominic] Vladimir Putin.
- Well, despite looking like Dobby the House Elf,
you know, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.
- [Dominic] Women.
- Hot totty.
- [Dominic] Gay men.
- Tank-topped bumboys.
Bumboy. (mumbling)
(Boris breathes)
(bird caws) (birds tweet)
How many you got?
- 500 or so.
- Oh, and how many did, err,
Harry and Meghan have for Archie?
(Carrie chuckles)
- [Carrie] Mmm, mmm.
- You know, that's no good for him.
It's too salty.
- [Carrie] It didn't stop you from having three rashers.
- Well, I've gotta keep up my strength.
- Can you take Dylin out?
- It's raining.
- He needs a wee.
- [Boris] Oh god. Woods, you wouldn't mind, would you?
- Of course, Prime Minister.
- Thank you, thank you,
you shall be mentioned in dispatches.
(Woods tuts)
(Woods sighs)
(text clicks)
- We estimate a fatality rate of 0.9%
with up to 80% of the population getting the virus,
500,000 deaths,
if we do nothing.
- It's a worst-case scenario here.
- It is what would happen if we do nothing.
- The data we're getting out of Italy now
tells us there are almost 1,000 people in Italy
under house quarantine,
about 1,000 in hospital,
but here's the thing,
almost 200 in intensive care.
That's almost 10% of all the positive cases.
- How far behind Italy do you think we are?
- Four, five weeks, more if we put measures in place
to slow down the spread of the virus.
(keyboard clacks) (siren wails)
- Mum. (reception chatters)
- Make sure it's covering your nose
and your mouth, like this.
Can you hear me?
- [Andrea] No.
- Good. (laughter)
It means it's working.
(laughter)
- [Doctor 2] It's gonna be so (indistinct).
(laughter)
(nurse coughs)
- The answer for that, Andrea, is don't use your phone.
- Aw! - Ha ha
ha! - Hey!
(staff members applaud)
(text clicks)
- I think you should look at this.
- Never read the paper.
They're all lotta stuff and nonsense.
It's just froth and foam,
and I say that as a journalist.
(keyboard clacks)
- It's rugby league, was it?
- [Patient 1] Yeah, yeah, the light was
from down (indistinct),
mmm, yeah. - Ah.
(stubble rustles)
(keys jingle)
- [Prudence] Get a move on!
- [Steve] Hey.
- (door clacks) - Oh, look, I got a circle.
- [Prudence] Oh, hi.
- Hi, shouldn't you guys be at school?
Right, come on, let's go. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We need to hurry up. - What time is it?
- [Prudence] Come on, come on, go.
Come on, we need to...
We need to do our homework the night before, please.
- Okay, Daddy hug.
Come on, boys, be good, mmm.
Okay, you gonna be good?
Have fun! Bye!
(door clunks)
(siren wails)
- [Aide] Just thought we might let you know.
- [Lee] Morning, Gabriel.
Err, where are you?
- Err, err, I'm in beautiful Birmingham.
- Okay, (chuckles) and what are the, err...
What are the focus groups telling us?
- People right now are not that focused on the virus.
They're still pretty pissed off about the floods.
- Whatever the exact shape of the epidemic,
we do know that some people are gonna die
and there will be an impact on the economy.
- Exactly, th-there's gonna be bad news,
but the question is how do we handle it.
- The one big takeaway is people don't trust politicians,
they don't trust the media, they do trust scientists.
- Thought we hated experts.
- People trust scientists.
- [Secretary] Congratulations.
- Thank you.
- Mm, thank you.
- [Aide] Congratulations, Prime Minister.
- Thank you, sweet of you to notice.
- Can we grab you?
It's just a bit of a tight schedule today.
- Yeah, all right, we've, uh...
Err, are you okay?
- Yes, dear. - Right
- Congratulations, Prime Minister. Wonderful news.
- Oh god, this is getting a bit embarrassing.
- Well done, boss.
- Well, well, thank you very much,
although you're looking a bit gloomy today.
So what is in the diary?
- Err, SPI-B and SPI-M are meeting
ahead of today's COBRA meeting,
which you're going to chair.
They'll present the latest numbers and advice.
- Good.
- Then we're gonna record a video,
which we'll put out tonight,
show that we're still on top of things.
- Good, good.
You'll work on the speech?
- Err, it'll just be an interview.
- Right. - Err, then, we're gonna go
to a hospital,
err, which we'll brief out later,
visit the front line,
boost the morale of the troops.
- "Once more unto the breach, dear friends."
- Exactly.
- Yeah, although thinking about it,
probably not a good reference:
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
or close the wall up with our English dead."
Yeah, "The Mirror" would love that.
- We need to get you on, though.
We need to get ahead of the curve.
We need to give them your message.
- Right, err, so what is the message?
- Err, that we're in charge.
(feverish music)
(Steve coughs)
(Steve sighs)
(Steve coughs)
(keyboard clacks)
- The teams at Imperial and LSHTM
have been looking at the first numbers from Italy.
- [Matt] Right.
- And it's looking like 9% of infected patients
are needing ICU care.
- Yeah.
- We start from a situation where we only have 6.6 ICU beds
per 100,000 population.
Italy has double that number;
Germany, more than four times that number.
- We need to start thinking about how to create more beds,
more ICU capacity, more ventilators,
or we're going to have doctors playing god,
having to decide who goes on a ventilator, who doesn't.
- Yeah, cannot let that happen.
Okay, what can we do to increase capacity?
- The Chinese built temporary hospitals.
I think we should consider it.
- Maybe the military can help.
They build field hospitals.
(siren wails)
- [Carrie] Hello!
- Oh, hello, how are you? - (laughs) Hello. I do.
- It's been a while.
- I know. I've been hiding away.
But I'm allowed out now, so here I am.
- [Rob] And here you are,
or something like this. (Carrie laughs)
How is it?
- I'm loving it.
- Good! - I'm rea-, I'm loving it.
- Good. Well, you're looking very well.
- [Carrie] Oh, that's very kind. (laughs)
- The government should advise against greetings,
such as shaking hands and hugging,
given existing evidence of the importance of hand hygiene.
- Morning, boys. Okay, let's get (indistinct).
- So, the reproduction rate, RO,
is the number of people each person infects on average.
We estimate that number to be between two and three in Wuhan
before they locked the city down.
If the same thing happens here, it would correspond
to 80% of people in the UK getting the virus.
If you look at the next chart,
you see a curve based on the time it takes
for the number of infections to double.
We believe that time in Wuhan is between four and six days.
Those numbers may be different in the UK.
We believe that there is sustained transmission of COVID-19
in the UK at present.
We believe that the peak of case numbers should be expected
3-5 months after the start of widespread transmission
if there's no intervention to reduce contact.
We believe the lockdown in Wuhan has been effective
in reducing the epidemic.
Our best estimate of the infection fatality rate
is in the range of 0.5% to 1%,
ranging from 0.01% of the under 20s to 8% in the over-80s.
- Yeah, I think I got that.
What, what, what is that in terms of sheer numbers?
- 1% of 80% of the UK population is 500,000.
- Half a million dead?
- Yes.
- (chuckles) That is a worst-case scenario, right?
- Yes. Err, we're not expecting that to happen.
- Those numbers are if we do nothing
to mitigate the spread of the virus.
- China's only had a couple of thousand deaths.
Or well, so they say. I mean...
But th-th-there's a billion of them.
- And they imposed a very draconian lockdown very quickly.
- Yeah, one advantage of not having democracy.
- A lockdown like the Chinese one
stores up problems for later.
You can't stop a virus.
Err, once you release the lockdown,
the virus will spread again
until, of course, you either have a vaccine
or enough people have had it that you get herd immunity.
- So what are we gonna do?
- We need to slow down the infection rate
to flatten the curve to give us time to prepare
and to spread out the demand for ICU.
SPI-B has recommended a really clear policy
of no shaking hands
and really good hand-washing hygiene.
- The sort of thing my, my, err, my nanny used to tell me.
- Err, we need to isolate people who have symptoms,
and looking ahead,
we do need to think about school closures.
- Oh, really, I-
- We believe the incubation period is
between one and 11 days,
twice as long as with flu,
so we don't believe
screening people entering the country
would be effective.
- Right,
right. - I think, I think it's vital
that we, err, communicate this
as clearly and accurately as possible.
- Exactly.
- I would suggest we have formal press conference tomorrow
with you and Chris alongside the P.M.
Think it's very important that we show
that any measures that are taken
are in response to independent expert scientific advice.
(keyboard clacks)
- That's a really good idea, so guys,
if the patient is symptomatic, we use this entrance
and go directly through there
to radiology and the COVID ward.
Now, if you just follow me around the corner.
And if they have no symptoms,
they use this entrance
and go through here, through the green wards;
however, if we're not sure,
then we put them here in the purple room.
- There's one thing about the numbers.
- What?
- The doubling time: 4-6 days.
There was an earlier estimate of 3-4.
That's a big difference.
- Look, look at that data. Check it all again.
- Sure.
- All right. Yeah. (Lee speaks indistinctly)
Yeah, hi, Dom. Hi, Cleo.
Okay, shall we, shall we...
Great, thank you, good.
Okay, let's do this, shall we?
Prime Minister, could you give us an update, please?
Err, well, I've, err, I've just chaired
a COBRA, (sighs) err, err, err, meeting on coronavirus,
and I think it is a, err, a, a, problem that is, err, likely
to become, err, more significant for this country
in the next...
Sh-, what, err, what are we gonna say?
- Psst. - Months or what?
- If you make it days,
then they understand it's not forever.
I think it makes them feel- - Okay, alright. Okay, listen.
I'll do it again. (claps) Yes, yes, yes!
Team Boris, we can do this, come on!
Okay, here we go.
But the, the single best thing we can all do,
err, to protect ourselves
is to wash our hands,
err, two times Happy Birthday.
Other than that, though, I wish to stress
that people, ah, as far as possible
should go about, err, business as usual.
- [Aide] This, the car's ready,
Prime Minister. - What? Right.
(siren wails)
(horn honks)
- [Consultant 1] As you can see, we have been extremely busy
with a lot of cases.
- Yep. - But we are coping admirably.
- [Consultant 2] We have some new-
- Ah, hello, good to see...
Listen, how are you feeling?
- Not good.
- You are in the best place.
We have got the best, err, doctors in the world.
- The advice is not to shake hands, just so you know.
- That would be terrible.
It'd be like Churchill hiding in a bunker.
Tops, well, very good to see you. Good to see you.
Well done, young man. Nice to see you.
(text clicks)
(siren wails)
(weighty music) (text clicks)
(door clunks)
- [Prudence] It's on the right.
- [Paramedic 1] Thank you.
(Steve coughing)
- [Paramedic 2] Doing ever so well.
- [Paramedic 1] Sorry about what we're wearing.
We've just got to do it at the moment, okay?
(ventilator hisses)
(Steve sighs)
- [Paramedic 2] Just gonna go up your nose.
- [Steve] Ugh.
- [Paramedic 2] Just put it round your ears.
- [Steve] Ugh. (coughs)
- [Paramedic 2] Alright?
Take your time.
- [Steve] Ah.
- [Paramedic 2] Whoops.
(Steve breathes)
Take your time.
- [Steve] Ah.
- [Paramedic 1] Alright?
- [Steve] Mm.
- [Paramedic 2] Yeah?
- [Steve] Don't worry, okay?
It's gonna be okay.
- [Patient 1] Don't worry, we'll take good care
of Dad, alright?
(Steve breathes)
(door clunks)
- Take care, hmm?
We'll come and visit as soon as we can.
(door clunks)
(tires screech) (siren wails)
- [Aide] Oh yes, guests.
(visitors speak indistinctly)
Morning.
- [Patrick] I'm actually a little nervous.
- Heh, glad you said it, Patrick.
- Hello, boys! Good to see you.
Err, these thing can be a little bit awkward,
so let's hope the old press pack aren't
in a feeding frenzy today.
If anyone gets the third degree, it'll be me.
I shall be your, err, human shield, as it were.
- [Patrick] Thank god.
- Today we've, we have published
the Coronavirus Action Plan.
Err, the plan has four strands:
contain, delay, research, and mitigate.
Finally, crucially, err, w-we must not forget
what we can all do to fight this virus,
which is to wash our hands;
you knew I was gonna say this;
with soap and, and water.
Yes, thanks. - Will you be shaking hands,
Prime Minister?
- No, I, I mean, I was shaking hands
at a, a hospital the other night
where, I believe, there were a few coronavirus patients.
Err, and I shook hands with everybody,
uh, y-, uh, you'll, you'll be pleased to know.
- You alright, John?
- [John] Yeah.
- Good.
So, we start off.
We wet our hands, so everybody, wet your hands.
Give our hands a good rub together
so we get lots of soap, lots of lather, on there.
There we go. That's it Laura, very good.
We have to do it as if we were singing Happy Birthday twice.
You've got a good voice, haven't you, Brian?
I've heard. - Yeah.
- Yeah, I've heard you singing before.
And then, a nice clean cloth.
- Okay, sure, yeah, I'll put ya through. Right.
(button clicks)
Julie? It's the hospital on the phone.
- Hi, Julie, just checking in.
We've got to clear some space ahead of coronavirus,
and we're trying to move out any patients
without any clinical needs,
so we were working if The Grange had any space for us.
- Err, yeah, we have one.
We've just lost a resident.
(text clicks)
(door clacks)
- If you come and say hello to Phillip and Holly.
- Prime Minister.
- Yep, good to see you, good to see you.
- Yeah. - Nice to see you, Holly.
- Have a seat. - Thank you. Thanks.
(bright jingle)
- [Aide] Boris is on.
- Look. - Welcome back.
Now, overnight the government has faced fresh accusations
of withholding information.
Are you withholding information?
- Err, n-n-no, no, err, no, not all, not at all.
Let me, lemme, lemme clear that up immediately,
I mean, ‘cause it is very important,
err, you know, err, that we're transparent.
Very important the people understand
that we are, we're transparent, aye.
- You did walk straight in here,
and I kept my hands by my side
just to see what would happen, umm,
and err, and you came over and you shook my hand.
- Well, I d-, I did, I di-, 1 did, I di-, I.
- Ah, fuck's sake!
- People make their own, err, (sighs) you know, decisions,
but I, you know, I think washing them, I think-
- Is the key. - Is the single
most effective thing.
- Fuck's sake!
- [Aide] Boring.
- Someone, please, tell Phillip Schofield
that Boris is never gonna grace his studio again!
- [Aide] She'll have them for you.
(door clunks) (severe music)
- [Reporter] More than 3,000 cases
have been confirmed here,
with the number of death
(monitor beeps) jumping by 28
in the past day alone.
Now, all primary schools, colleges, and universities
will shut their doors.
Italy's sports minister signalled matches could be held
without fans coming to watch.
(man coughs)
- [Health Worker 1] Err, check your observations, okay?
- [Patient 2] Okay.
- [Health Worker 2] Michael?
- [Michael] Err, yes.
- [Health Worker 2] Did he level out,
that young patient, Luke?
- [Michael] Yes, yes.
- I don't think treating COVID patients in side wards
is going to work.
- It's too busy already.
It's only going to get worse.
- We need red zones, and we need green zones.
(text clicks)
(bike buzzes)
- To sum up, we are still in the contain phase.
Modelling supports implementation
within 1-2 weeks of individual-home isolation,
whole-family isolation
in order to delay the spread of COVID-19
and reduce mortality rates.
- [Reporter] The first UK death
of a patient with coronavirus,
at a hospital in Reading,
the victim was elderly
and already suffering from pre-existing conditions.
- Umm, can you have a look at this, please?
- [Boris] What is it?
- It's the guest list for the baby shower.
- Really? (sighs)
- Yes, really. We're having a baby!
It's the most important thing you can do in your life.
- Yeah, yeah, I, yeah, err, yeah, it's just, you know,
there's quite a lot of other things going on.
- I know, but unfortunately,
I cannot postpone having the baby, so just-
- I understand.
- What do you think of the list?
- Err, it's fine. It's fine, fine, fine, yeah.
- Should I invite your children?
Oh god, I don't, I don't know. I dunno.
You decide. You decide. (sighs)
(siren wails) (text clicks)
- [Reporter] How many more deaths?
Today, a patient in Milton Keynes
became the second fatality.
- We're struggling.
Our main suppliers have been disrupted
by the Chinese lockdown,
and there's been a surge in demand worldwide.
- What we can't have is hospitals running out of protection.
- Agreed, we need to change the guidelines now
to try and avoid shortages later.
(siren wails)
- This morning, we had the new advice
from Public Health England
vis-a-vis PPE,
so if you're on a COVID ward
and you're not going within a metre of the patient,
you don't need the full gown and filter-style mask,
just basic apron, mask, and goggles.
- Well, do they know it's safe outside a metre?
- That's the recommendation.
- (scoffs) That does seem a bit strange on the surface.
Why, why not just wear full gown?
- Maybe they don't have enough.
(keyboard clacks)
(imam sings in Arabic)
- [Imam] Allahu Akbar.
(imam sings in Arabic)
- [Reporter] Fear of infection has depleted
even the most devoted crowds,
even here in the Grand Mosque.
Fear of this virus has made us, its hosts,
put up borders and barriers
while the unwelcome guest is busy crossing them
with blind disregard for ideology, creed, or flag.
- [Richard] So far, evidence suggests
that the colossal public health efforts
of the Chinese government
have saved thousands of lives.
(text clicks)
As the window for global containment closes,
health ministers are scrambling
to implement appropriate measures
to delay spread of the virus,
but their actions have been
slow and insufficient.
- And oh, here they all are, very good, excellent, good.
- So, may I introduce you to, err, the captain of the team?
- Ah, the captain. - And she'll
introduce you to the others. - There's the boss.
Nice to see you. - This is Vicky,
our, err, openside flanker. - Vicky.
- Oh, the fl-flanker, okay.
(players laughs)
- Nice to meet you. I'm number two.
Number two, in the front row, course you are.
- Err, Grace. - Oh, yeah, me too.
- [Boris] Grace, where do you (indistinct)?
- [Grace] Oh, nice ring.
- Oh, thank you. It's my engagement ring.
- I guessed.
(player chuckles) (Carrie laughs)
So, which comes first, the wedding or the baby?
- Err, err, baby, (laughs) I suppose.
(crowd cheering)
- [Commentator 1] Inside ball to Watson.
- Yeah! - Watson!
(whistle rings)
- [Nurse 1] It's alright, Myrtle. You try to relax.
- [Health Worker 3] Okay, Vicky.
- Yeah? - We're gonna give you
some medication to help you sleep, okay?
And then, we're gonna pop a tube down your throat
to help you breathe, alright?
- [Reporter] Around the world, there are now more
than 100,000 cases of coronavirus.
- First, we've got Lucy Allan, who's the MP for Telford.
- Right. - And we've got Philip Dunne,
who is the MP for Ludlow.
- Okay. - And this should be
a really good area for us.
(crowd speaks indistinctly)
- All right. - Right, ooh, well, this looks
like, hmm, last dregs of it.
You probably had it pretty bad, did you?
- Well, it's flooded through the back door
through to the front.
- I've mainly pushed your water out.
I'm gonna love you and leave you,
my friends. - Come here, please.
- [Butcher] Thank you very much.
(shutter snaps)
- [Reporter] (indistinct) Boris.
- Traitor! Don't laugh.
You're a traitor, Boris!
- [Reporter] People in Bugley
weren't letting the Prime Minister forget
that he didn't come when their town looked like this.
- [Reporter] North Manchester General Hospital
announcing in the last hour
that a man who'd recently travelled from Italy
had died on its specialist infectious-disease unit.
- [Reporter] President Macron today banned gatherings
of more than 1,000 in France.
(horns honk) (siren wails)
(bell tolls)
- Morning. - Morning.
Morning. - Morning.
- Gabriel, we need to know what the public think
about the lockdown over in Italy.
We also need to know what they think about the idea
of it happening here in Britain.
- Yeah, sure, err, we've got groups
in, err, Crawley, Bradford, Nuneaton, and Telford.
- Well, you're living the life.
- [Gabriel] I'm not doing all of them myself.
- What is the risk to a foetus? Do you know?
- Not, not really in my wheelhouse, that one.
- Are you seeing Chris Whitty?
- Yeah. - Well, can you ask him?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I'm just, I'm thinking
there are an awful lot of people
coming in and out of this building
and maybe I would be safer in the Camberwell house.
- Or Chequers?
- Oh god no. No, I don't wanna go there.
- Oh god, sorry, look. I gotta...
It's a, err, dirty job, but someone's gotta do it,
so I shall, err, see you later.
- Alright.
(Dylin barks) - Err, come on, Dylin.
- [Reporter] They're calling it Black Monday.
Traders braced for the worse and within seconds it came.
- Err, eh, would you, err,
would you mind doing the honours?
- No problem, Prime Minister.
- Thank you. (Dylin barks)
Err, morning all. Hello, hello, hello.
Sorry if I'm late, everyone.
So, that's the downside of working from home:
you can't be late,
‘cause there's no, err, catching the Victoria Line,
no "my bike got a puncture.”
Oh, hello, hello, Mark. You're here, excellent.
Umm, although I'm, I'm, I'm guessing
that possibly you, you do not, err, have good news.
- [Lee] FTSE's down 8% in the last hour.
- Shit.
- That's as bad as 2008.
- It's about £400 billion lost.
- [Boris] Yikes.
- Well, given this current crisis
and with a budget coming so soon,
it feels like we should be coordinating action
between the key departments
of Treasury, Health, Home Office, possibly Foreign Office,
all coordinated through the Cabinet Office.
- Through you?
- Yes, with the oversight of Michael Gove of course.
- We need to get onto the front foot.
The Italian lockdown is all over the news,
and it feels like we're getting left behind.
- Okay, what do you think Dom?
- Italy's in chaos, but then, it's Italy.
I don't think people here want a lockdown,
and if we lockdown, then the economy's gonna crash.
- What, and what else do we...
We, we can't have that, so...
- The average age of the people dying in Italy is over 80.
- 80. - Over 80.
We've had 10 years of austerity
where pensioners have been protected with a triple lock
whilst wages have been frozen, benefits frozen,
tuition fees trebled.
We have to think about intergenerational justice.
We have to, to, to reset the balance
between the young and the old.
- Right, okay, okay, so umm, are you talking to Rishi?
- Yeah, we're going through the numbers,
but it's gonna have to be something huge to make any impact.
- Phwoo!
- [Woman] Can't stay long here.
Why should he have to take so long?
- [Hospital Worker 1] Right, well, we just need
to put this bed down now, okay?
- [Hospital Worker 2] Gonna be a bit uncomfortable.
Let's take this pillow out.
There we go. Well done.
Put the face mask over.
- [Hospital Worker 3] Well done, Johnny.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Saturating at 84%.
- 'Kay. - Good.
(hospital worker 2 speaks indistinctly)
- [Hospital Worker 1] ‘Kay, we're saturating okay.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Yeah, 85%.
- [Hospital Worker 3] Of aspiration.
- [Hospital Worker 1] 'Kay, ready with crico.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Crico's on.
Sats okay.
- [Hospital Worker 3] 'Kay.
Pass the tube.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Ready for tube.
Oxygen level's okay.
- [Hospital Worker 3] Okay, good.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Yeah.
- [Hospital Worker 3] Grade I intubation.
- [Hospital Worker 2] Coughie inflated.
- [Hospital Worker 3] Everybody happy?
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.
- [Hospital Worker 3] It's hot in this PPE.
- We need to do whatever we can to slow this epidemic down,
or we are going to be overwhelmed.
Top of the list: mass gatherings.
Italy and France have banned them.
- You know, given the choppy economic waters
that we find ourselves in,
the, you know, rhetoric is steady as we can, you know?
We don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot,
by, by, by killing off people's livelihoods.
- So SAGE is still of the belief
that banning mass gatherings, like Cheltenham,
would have little long-term benefit.
- Uh, I, and I think that, frankly, it smells of panic
if we are to, you know, err, ban Cheltenham
the day before we start.
Err, it's not a good look,
is it? - I agree.
(horn honks)
- [Collette] Steve, we've got your results back.
We think we need to put you on a ventilator.
Is that okay?
- [Steve] Mmm.
- [Collette] Alright, what we'll do,
we'll give you some drugs and pop a tube down your throat
and take this mask off, alright?
- Mmm. - You'll be asleep.
(phone rings)
- [Older Son] Mmm.
Hello?
- [Collette] Hi, it's Collette, Steve's nurse.
He just wants to have a word with you, okay?
I'll pop him on.
- Thank you. - Here. Here, Steve.
- [Prudence] Hi.
- [Prudence] How you feeling?
- [Prudence] Yeah.
- [Younger Son] (indistinct) try yours.
- You sound terrible.
I know. They explained everything to me.
Take care. The, the kids are here!
- It's spicy. - Say hello to your dad!
- Hello, Dad.
- Say- - Hello, Dad.
- [Steve] Hey, (breathes) h-how are you? Okay?
- Yeah.
- [Steve] How's, how's school?
- Boring.
- [Steve] Ah. (coughs)
(Steve breathes)
I love you.
- Love you, Dad.
- [Steve] Bye. (wheezes) Ugh.
- [Hospital Worker 4] Deep breath.
We're almost there. We're almost there.
- [Reporter] A fourth person in the UK has died
after testing positive for coronavirus.
The patient, who was being treated
at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospital,
was in their 70s and had underlying health conditions.
- [Reporter] Italy has now imposed a national lockdown
to contain the spread of COVID-19.
- Wow, 60 million in lockdown in Italy.
- [Reporter] But the number of cases and deaths.
- Yeah, better stock up on pasta
before all the other idiots start panic buying.
- [Reporter] Are now necessary. (indistinct)
- [Carrie] Do you think they're actually gonna stay home?
- Well, I doubt it.
Perhaps while they've got them locked down,
they'll make them pay their taxes.
(text clicks)
(horse neighs)
(spectators murmur)
- Umm, just a little, umm, to get rid of the shine.
- Don't worry. Gonna make you look lovely.
- There's only a certain number of people you can infect,
so one person in a 70,000-seater stadium's not gonna infect
the whole stadium.
They will infect potentially
a few people they have very close contact with.
That's true in any setting:
in the home, in a church, in a restaurant.
- Saw you on the telly, Patrick.
- Hey? - Very good.
- Thank you. Well, comms is important.
- Oh, err, Sir Patrick.
- Mark Warner. Err, I run faculty.
Err, we're working on data for NHS.
Umm, Dom just asked me to sit in.
- Brother?
- Yes.
- Okay, everybody, shall we get started?
Data is firming up that we're about 4-5 weeks behind Italy,
and that will increase to 6-8 weeks
once we apply the mitigation procedures.
(horn honks) (traffic murmurs)
- Alright?
- Morning. - Morning, Jamie.
- Morning, Chris. - Morning.
- [Staff Member] We've just heard from Nadine.
She's not going to make it. She's sick.
- 'Kay. With what?
- She tested for COVID.
- Oh shit, well, that probably means
we're all gonna get it, doesn't it?
Okay, well let's start with testing.
Where are we at?
- We currently have capacity for 1,500 tests per day.
We've been talking with NHS labs.
Our plan is to ramp up to 10,000 tests per day.
- 'Kay, and how many tests, err, have been done so far?
- As of today we've carried out 26,261 tests,
with 373 being positive.
- 'Kay, and who, exactly, is getting
the tests, besides Nadine?
I mean, can doctors get them?
- It is vital we protect our health workers.
All our experiences of epidemics, like Ebola,
show that if doctors start dying,
the public lose trust in the system.
- Press would go crazy.
- Ah, yes. - Yeah.
- [Reporter] Today, Italians are adjusting
to restrictions on movement and bans on public gatherings.
(ventilator hisses)
- [Reporter] Hospital staff are struggling to cope
with the sheer number of people infected,
and now people across the entire nation
have been told they can only go out
for work, family, and health emergencies.
(text clicks)
- [Reporter] The Bank of England has announced
an emergency interest rate cut
to shore up the economy during the coronavirus outbreak.
- So umm, let's start with the situation in Italy.
If those hospitals were in this country,
how would that make you feel?
- I'd be really scared.
- And I'd be really worried of all families or friends.
- And if that was happening in your local hospital,
if those pictures were your local hospital,
how would you feel about the government?
- Very angry.
- We've not been in this situation,
certainly not in my lifetime.
- Disappointed. You know, we should know better.
- Alright, if the government said
there were 10,000 people are gonna die,
would that justify a lockdown?
- One life is too many.
- [Focus Group Member] It's very hard to say.
- Would it destroy the economy?
- Well, it just seems like you're limiting my freedom.
- You'd get rioting on the street.
- Yeah. - The kids'd go berserk,
the teenagers.
You couldn't do that to them.
- [Reporter] A drive-through coronavirus test site
has been opened in Wolverhampton.
- I know we haven't been asked to model a lockdown,
but given the experience of China and Italy,
it just seemed crazy not to.
- We're doing the same.
- I'll send the papers over,
err, but basically, if we implement the current plan,
we're talking about deaths in the hundreds of thousands.
If we implement a lockdown, something like Italy,
we could reduce the number of deaths
to somewhere around 30,000.
- [Michelle] Blood pressure's dropping over here.
Can I have some help over here, please?
- [Hospital Worker 4] You alright, Michelle?
- [Michelle] Err, blood pressure's dropping a little bit.
- [Hospital Worker 4] Okay, d'you wanna give a bit of bolus
and then increase that to eight?
- [Michelle] T, would you be able
to bleep the doctor for me?
- [T] Yes, honey.
- [Hospital Worker 4] Err, give him a bit of suction
for us, Michelle.
- Suction. - Just listening to chest now.
Looks like PE. Let's start chest compressions.
Will you get the crash trolley as soon as possible, please?
- [Michelle] Would you like to ring his family
for me, please?
- [T] Would you ring the family for me, please?
(phone rings)
- [Prudence] Hello?
- [Hospital Worker 5] Hello, Faith.
I'm so sorry, but your husband, Steve,
his organs have stopped working.
- I should take that from you!
- [Hospital Worker 5] There's nothing more we can do.
I'm so sorry I have to say this over the phone.
(Prudence sighs)
Err, err, err, tha-thank you.
- [Younger Son] Is that the hospital?
- Yeah. Daddy's struggling.
He really wants to come back.
- Alright.
- And we're deeply concerned
by the alarming levels of inaction.
COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic.
(horns honk)
- I know how worried people are,
worried about their health,
the health of their loved ones,
their jobs, their income, their businesses,
their financial security.
I will do whatever it takes
to support the economy. (siren wails)
(crowd chants indistinctly)
- [Commentator] There's Oxlade-Chamberlain
on the right-hand side.
Oxlade-Chamberlain cross.
It's headed down by Wijnaldum! Liverpool Score!
And with half-time approaching,
it's one-nil on the night;
one-one on aggregate.
Firmino's header hits the post, comes back.
It's in! Firmino scores at Anfield.
And now the chance...
Oh, it's in!
What a finish from Llorente from just outside the box.
And with this scoreline,
the holders are going out here in Anfield.
Barreta to finish it,
left foot into the net,
and Diego Simeone's team are knocking out
last season's Champion's League winners.
- [Reporter] A health worker has died in hospital,
having been diagnosed with coronavirus.
- Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile:
I love you right up to the moon and back.
- Where's Daddy?
- He loves you, darling.
He loves you, and he'll always be watching you
and be with you just like when he was here.
And when you look up at the stars and see one shining,
that's where Daddy is,
and he'll always be loving you and watching you,
just like when he was here.
(text clicks)
- [Reporter] The world's financial markets have taken fright
at the possible economic impact of coronavirus
with sharp falls as the market opens.
- Rishi. - Morning. Lee.
- (inhales) "If it be now, 'tis not to come.
If it be not to come it will be now,
if it be not now,
yet it will come.
The readiness is all."
- [Dominic] Markets are crashing again.
- [Boris] I thought everybody loved the budget.
- They did. - For about an hour.
- Oh god, that was the shortest honeymoon
in history, wasn't it?
- They're all spooked.
We're gonna need Rishi to go again,
try and do something to calm things down.
- Well, you, err, you're gonna do the numbers
with him, yeah?
- Yeah, they're gonna need to be big.
- Oh, I thought they were big in the budget.
- [Dominic] They were.
- Yeah, I, good, I'm glad to hear you say that.
They seemed bloody big to me.
(phone rings)
- Testing.
- We believe we should stop testing in the community
and focus on only testing people in hospitals with symptoms.
- We've literally just announced a big expansion in testing.
- If we keep testing in the community,
we won't have enough testing capacity for hospitals.
- Can't we just private labs to expand our capacity further?
- We need to maintain
the quality and accuracy of the testing
by keeping within PHE and NHS.
- We've had a lot of labs-
- [Yvonne] Mmm?
- Offering to work with us.
- We are pressing the ACDP
to allow containment level 2 labs
to be able to handle the samples.
That would help.
- But the data will still all need to feed back
into our system.
- It's gonna look ugly,
announcing it the day after shouting about more tests.
- Where are we at with PPE?
- We're struggling.
(engine growls) (siren wails)
- [Doctor 3] So, this is Comfort.
She's on 15 litres of oxygen.
- [Katie] Okay.
- [Doctor 3] I'll leave her with you.
Thank you very much. - Thank you.
Hi, Comfort, my name's Katie.
I'm the nurse that's gonna be looking after ya today.
We'll get ya transferred over
on to a more comfortable bed, okay?
- [Hospital Worker 6] Beth, can you, please,
cue the doctors?
- [Beth] Yeah, sure.
Could we, please, have someone come and look at our patient
in bed space 9, bay 2, please?
His oxygen requirement is on its way up,
and he's starting to struggle slightly.
- [Boris] Right, morning, what have all you Cassandra's got
to tell me today?
- Cassandra's prophecies were true remember.
It was just no one believed her.
- Yes, I know.
I do just about remember some
of the stuff they taught me at school, thank you.
- So, SAGE met today.
We think there may be more cases of COVID than we estimated.
- Why?
- There's a 5-7-day lag in the data.
- Jesus Christ.
- John Edmunds did some modelling for SPI-M
on the impact of a full lockdown.
It estimates that it could bring the fatalities down
from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.
- Who asked them to model a lockdown?
- It was their own initiative.
- [Chris] Imperial are running their own numbers, too.
- We decide the questions that need to be answered.
It's not some fucking free for all chat group,
and what's going on with testing?
It's a shambles.
- I have been pushing PHE to increase testing for weeks,
but they are a law unto themselves.
We have hundreds of labs in this country wanting to help,
but I cannot get PHE to get involved.
- For fuck's sake.
- Don't blame me, Dom.
Blame Andrew effing Lansley.
(Matt speaks indistinctly) - Err, okay, okay, okay, okay,
calm down boys.
So, err, Rishi,
what're we gonna do to try to get the markets on side?
- Well, that depends
on whether we impose more social distancing.
- Oh right, neat, err, sidestep. Err. (sighs)
- SAGE believes household isolation should be imposed
as soon as possible.
- We cannot allow ourselves
to get into the same state that Italy is in.
- Well, that's your job, isn't it?
- I'm in favour of a lockdown.
- That is on the agenda of this meeting.
- [Reporter] The death toll in Italy has passed 1,000,
an increase of 23% in the past 24 hours.
Hospitals in Lombardy are struggling to cope.
- So, you've seen those pictures from Italy, the lockdown.
How would you feel if the government proposed
something similar here,
they said, "Stay at home all day.
Err, work if you can.
If you can't, just, you know, stay at home anyway."
- Well, would they be paying us?
(focus group member scoffs)
- Well, let's say they did.
- Err, yeah, I'd definitely be up for that, then.
- Like, if there's a way to protect the vulnerable people,
then of course.
And then, the younger people who maybe aren't at risk
can go ahead and keep the economy running.
(ventilator hisses)
- [Hospital Worker 7] Do we let them do it?
- [Hospital Worker 8] Oh yes, please.
Can you do the blood, nurse?
- [Hospital Worker 7] Gonna take a blood sample.
(patient heavy coughing)
(pedal clacks)
- It is now a global, err, pandemic,
and the number of cases, err, will rise.
You know, we've all gotta be clear
that this is the worst public health crisis
for a generation.
Many more families are going to lose, err, loved ones
before their time.
- It's like they're on the bridge of the Titanic.
They're finally seeing the iceberg coming towards them.
Ahead is another ship, HMS Italy.
They're watching the iceberg hit that ship
and the ship slowly sinking,
and yet they still won't change course.
They'll just blithely sail on towards the iceberg.
- [Patrick] There are 590 identified cases in the UK
and 20 patients in ICU.
We estimate that that means there are
between 5,000 and 10,000 cases in the UK right now.
- But if it's 10,000 cases now
and it's doubling every three days,
then in three weeks, it's gonna double seven times.
Two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64, 128.
128 times 10,000.
That's, that's 1 1/4 million cases.
- And three days after that, it's 2 1/2 million,
and in another three days, it'll be 5 million.
- Why aren't they locking down now?
- Well, you know why they're not locking down now:
‘cause they don't think that it's a big number right now.
- We will no longer be doing contact tracing.
Indeed many people will no longer be tested at all
if they're showing mild symptoms.
- Testing and contact tracing
are the two most important tools
in an epidemic.
Why on earth are they stopping them?
- 'Cause they're idiots.
- [Tariq] Mmm.
(cutlery clacks)
- Did you know that Churchill bashed out more than 40 books
as well as all his journalism?
- Even more than you.
- Yeah, and he, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
- Really? Well, I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.
- No, my sister won the Bad Sex prize,
err, err, for her books, obviously.
- [Carrie] Ha, did you know that Blair's memoirs were
the biggest-selling political memoirs ever?
- Whoa, you trying to set me some kind of challenge?
You know I can't resist that kinda thing.
(weighty music)
- [Nurse 2] Err, stable.
- [Tom] Hi. So, what's the latest?
- [Hospital Worker 9] Ah, so, Tom, I've done two rounds
of suction there, and his sats are 79.
He's not improving at all after that second round.
I just can't seem to improve it.
- [Tom] Thank you. It's Steven.
Alright, let's have a look-see, Steven.
- [Hospital Worker 10] It's not the sats probe.
We're getting a good trace.
- True. - Tom, we're not getting
enough tidal volume! - Let's try and bring suction.
- [Hospital Worker 9] Blood pressure of 87 over 43.
- [Tom] Now, Steven...
Right, no, we need to do a bronch.
- [Hospital Worker 9] ‘Kay.
(text clicks)
- [Reporter] Two more deaths in the UK,
bringing the total to 10.
- [Sam] Monique, what's the problem?
Why's he not been scanned yet?
- [Monique] There's (indistinct).
- [Mark] Some of my team are worried.
- [Sam] (scoffs) We're all worried.
It's the same for my team as well.
- [Mark] No, they're worried about scanning patients
when they don't know if they have COVID or not.
(keyboard clacks)
- [Paul] We have 300 volunteers,
many who are skilled in PCR,
as well as lab-space/containment facilities.
We are very keen to help
by using these resources
for diagnostic testing,
should that be useful.
- Our aim is to reduce the peak,
broaden the peak, not suppress it completely,
also, because the vast majority of people
get a mild illness,
to build up some kind of herd immunity
so more people are immune to the disease
and we reduce transmission.
At the same time, you protect those
who are most vulnerable
to it. - Ah.
- [Patrick] These are the key things we need to do.
- [Carrie] Oh.
- We seem to be picking up on a wartime fighting spirit,
so we need to push that, the Churchillian stuff.
- Err, Patrick's doing a tour of the studios,
taking one for the team.
- I like Patrick.
He's not afraid to stick his head above the parapet.
- [Interviewer] In terms of building up a herd immunity
within the UK,
(woman coughs)
what sort of percentage of the population
needs to have contracted the virus?
- About 60% is what you need for herd immunity.
- 60%? That's an awful lot of people dying in this country.
- Of course, we do face the prospect
of a number of people dying.
This is a nasty disease.
- What we're still missing is clear guidance on the criteria
of who gets a ventilator
and who doesn't get a ventilator.
We cannot have individual doctors walking round
making subjective judgements
on who to save and who to switch off
without any clear advice from us.
- I agree.
I think we need to set up an ethics committee
to draw up criteria.
- [Staff Member] Yeah.
- Ooh.
(phone rings)
Hi. (clears throat)
Hi! Hi.
- Hello, hi. How're you doing?
- Hi. - Err, welcome to my world.
This is the Downing Street equivalent of a gulag in Siberia.
- Listen, umm. (inhales) Could you do me a favour?
I want to go to the hospital,
and I was just wondering if you could come with me.
(keyboard clacks) (siren wails)
- Our vaccine ChAdOx1 nCov-19 is going
into the second phase of animal trials today.
- Great. Matthew?
- Err, we've been looking at the virus in children,
looking at the data from abroad,
and doing our own tests here.
Children don't seem to get serious infections.
The issue is whether, like with influenza, they're carriers.
It's very early,
but it doesn't look like transmission is high.
- So closing schools won't have much impact?
- Not from what we're seeing at the moment.
- About 60% is what we need for herd immunity.
- What do you make of that video?
What are your initial reactions?
Err, let's go to Annie.
- Angry, just at how cold he's being, like.
- Herd immunity, that's gonna kill thousands,
hundreds of thousands of people.
- It's disgusting.
It's, it's as if he's actually treating us
like herd of cattle.
- Uh, I, I, I can't emphasise enough
how much people hate the herd word.
- Yeah, you, you would not wanna let Patrick Vallance in
with that group.
He wouldn't get out alive.
- Yeah, well, let's make sure
Boris never uses that word then.
- The, err, word itself? Or the policy?
- Err, both actually.
- [Isaac] People don't exactly wanna hear
the government's letting hundreds of thousands of them die.
- Exactly.
- Gabriel, why don't you, err, come back
and base yourself out of here from Monday,
let some of your guys take the strain out there.
- Err, sure. I'd love to be able to go home at night.
- [Lee] Yeah, don't rely on that, ha ha ha ha.
- [Rob] You alright?
- Everything's completely fine.
- [Rob] Okay, good.
- Heh, I'm so sorry.
I've wasted your time. - No! Don't be silly.
It's fine.
- Ah.
- What are friends for?
(Carrie laughs)
Anyway, it's good role play for, you know, when I'm a dad.
- D'you fancy a drink?
- Sure.
(engine rumbles)
Cheers.
- Cheers.
Oh gosh, it is so nice to be out somewhere normal.
- [Rob] Mmm.
- Hmm. - Still,
I'm looking forward to Chequers.
- Yeah, I mean, it's a really weird place,
but it's fun, not like number 10.
My god, it's just being above the shop all the time.
It's so claustrophobic there, you know?
It's impossible to relax.
- So.
- Hmm?
- Is it a boy or a girl?
- [Bartender] Right, well, see ya.
- See ya later, thank you. - Um, it's a boy.
- Yay! A boy.
- [Carrie] Derr, shhh!
- Oh. (severe music)
(door knocks)
- [Ben] Hey, can I just run some numbers with you?
- Sure. Come this way.
- Mark and I have been looking at the numbers
for Imperial and LSHTM.
They're calculating the doubling time
from the RO and the generation time,
the amount of time it takes one person to infect another.
Imperial is using 2.4, which I think is too low,
and a generation time of 6 1/2 days.
That gives you a doubling time of over five days,
but the data, I-Italian data, doesn't fit this.
Look at Italy.
They've gone from five deaths by the 27th of February
to more than a thousand deaths by yesterday.
That's doubling every two days.
So with a doubling of two days,
we are not 4-5 weeks behind Italy,
more like two weeks.
- [Tariq] It will feel a little strange at first,
a bit like sticking your head out of the car window.
- [Hospital Worker 8] There, it's important
really have a snug fit.
- [Tariq] And focus on your breathing.
- [Reporter] Italy has recorded 250 deaths
in the past 24 hours,
its highest one-day total.
The WHO says Europe is now the epicentre of the pandemic.
(text clicks)
- [Matt] Morning Prime Minister
- Hi. - Morning.
- Morning, how are you?
- Morning, Prime Minister. - Jamie.
So, what have we got?
- We thought we were four weeks behind Italy.
We now think we may be closer.
- [Mark] Right, ho-how much closer?
- Ben Warner has been worried about your doubling time.
(sighs) I asked Faculty to take a look at the data.
- His brother's company?
- Yeah. Ben and Mark think it's more like 2-3 days.
- The mitigation will reduce the numbers.
It depends how people behave.
- If we lock down now,
with the sort of numbers of cases that we have,
we could contain this.
Look at the experience in China.
They have peaked already,
and new infection's drastically down.
- China, not comparable. Rishi?
- Well. (scoffs)
- We're modelling various types
of social distancing and social isolation.
We could model lockdown as well.
Obviously, the impact on the economy would be huge.
- [Boris] Ah.
- And the range is pretty huge, too.
We are modelling minimum and maximum interventions.
It'd be really helpful to have a clear idea
of what the plan is.
- We can all see the shape of the curve.
The longer we delay lockdown, the more cases we have,
the more likely the NHS is to be overwhelmed.
- I agree with Matt.
We need to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed at all costs.
The impact of the current mitigation proposals
will still leave us with hundreds of thousands of deaths.
- According to the modelling-
- If we have anywhere near those numbers,
we'll be out of here.
- Yep, but (indistinct), but it's not gonna be
as bad as that, is it?
I mean, I can't see that happening, and up to this point,
everybody round this table has led me to believe
that that would not be the case.
Has that now changed?
- [Matt] Dom's changed his tune.
- [Jamie] Yeah, it's weird.
- It's amazing. - I don't understand it.
(keyboard clacks) (door clacks)
- [Hospital Worker 10] I'm just gonna tighten.
- [Hospital Worker 10] That's it.
- Hello. Thank you.
- [Boris] Right.
So, who...
I can't remember. Who's coming, sorry?
- Lizzie-
- Right, okay. Right. - And Vicky and Sam.
- Sam?
- Sam? She works at CCHQ.
- Oh god, lots of people work in CCHQ.
- She's got long legs and short skirts.
- Oh yeah, Sam. I like her.
- Isabel and Jenny, my friends from uni,
and Rob and Mark. - Right. Rob?
- Yep. - I thought it was just girls.
- Rob's my friend.
- Yeah, I know but umm, you know, it's a, it's bit weird.
I mean, he works in the policy unit.
I mean, ho-how, how would you like it
if I invited Caino or Dom?
- They're not your friends, are they? Rob is my friend.
- Okay.
(jittery music)
(ventilator hisses) (monitor beeps)
- [Tom] We need to intubate.
(hospital worker 8 coughs)
- To Carrie!
- [Rob] Ah.
- And the baby!
- [Rob] Oh yeah,
to Carrie and the baby! - To Carrie and the baby!
- [Rob] Congratulations.
- Thank you, thank you.
- My dad's being put into a coma for intubation,
but I want to come in and see him.
- I'm afraid in the current situation, with the virus,
the hospital has a strict policy of no visitors.
- I don't care about policy.
He's my dad.
I have a right to see him.
- [Tom] Listen, I am incredibly sorry.
This is not the way we want to do things either.
(Tom sighs)
Look, your father is about to go into ICU,
and I am near him now,
so we can set up a FaceTime or a Skype.
- I don't wanna Skype him!
I want to see him!
I'm not letting you do this.
- [Tom] Phew.
- [Hospital Worker 9] Sats are 78.
- [Tom] Mouth. Suction, thank you.
Yeah, that's a good view.
Pass me the tube, please.
Yeah, I'm in.
- [Reporter] The number of COVID-19-related deaths in the UK
has more than doubled in one day,
taking the total to 21.
Spain has gone into lockdown,
and France has shut down all non-essential public locations.
(weighty music)