BBC: Boris Johnson Talks Bannings & Dispersal He Says "Many Lives Will be Lost!"

[Le Chat Noir]

BBC: Boris Johnson, "You Must Stay at Home".

Transcript - Good evening .. from this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home. Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households. That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited purposes:

• Shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible.
• Traveling to and from work only when absolutely necessary.
• Any medical need, to provide care or to help a vulnerable person.
• One form of exercise a day alone or with members of your household.

That’s all - these are the only reasons you should leave your home. You should not be meeting friends. If your friends ask you to meet, you should say No. You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home. You should not be going shopping except for essentials like food and medicine - and you should do this as little as you can.

And use food delivery services where you can. If you don’t follow the rules the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings. To ensure compliance with the Government’s instruction to stay at home, we will immediately..

• Close all shops selling non-essential goods,
• Close clothing and electronic stores,
• Close libraries, playgrounds, outdoor gyms, and places of worship,
• Stop weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, but excluding funerals.
• Stop gatherings of more than two people in public – except those you live with.

Parks will remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed. No Prime Minister wants to enact measures like this. I know the damage that this disruption is doing and will do to people’s lives, to their businesses and to their jobs. And that’s why we have produced a huge and unprecedented programme of support both for workers and for business.

I can assure you that we will keep these restrictions under constant review. We will look again in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows we are able to. But at present there are just no easy options. The way ahead is hard, and it is still true that many lives will sadly be lost. And yet it is also true that there is a clear way through.

Day by day we are strengthening our amazing NHS with 7500 former clinicians now coming back to the service. With the time you buy - by simply staying at home - we are increasing our stocks of equipment, we are accelerating our search for treatments. We are pioneering work on a vaccine.

And we are buying millions of testing kits that will enable us to turn the tide on this invisible killer. I want to thank everyone who is working flat out to beat the virus.Everyone from the supermarket staff to the transport workers to the carers to the nurses and doctors on the frontline.

But in this fight we can be in no doubt that each and every one of us is directly enlisted. Each and every one of us is now obliged to join together.To halt the spread of this disease. To protect our NHS and to save many many thousands of lives. And I know that as they have in the past so many times.

The people of this country will rise to that challenge. And we will come through it stronger than ever. We will beat the coronavirus and we will beat it together. And therefore I urge you at this moment of national emergency to stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives. Thank you. Published 23 March 2020.

This transcript has omitted the last bit where BJ says "many lives will be lost."