Is it a second wave, or a poorly handled first wave?

It’s official: the United Kingdom is back at war with the coronavirus. After what seemed like a winning battle, the U.K. is facing what appears to be a second wave of COVID-19 cases. 

The NewsBreak app presented in its report a 6,178 case increase within the last 24 hours, the ninth highest increase of the day worldwide. These cases make the U.K. the 14th highest in the world when it comes to cases, a boost from its 16th place last week.

The government is handling this surge accordingly. NPR published an article on the studies experts have been completing. These studies led to alarming results for the U.K.: they could face up to 50,000 new cases a day if nothing is done to prevent the rapid increase of cases. This could hit in mid-October if nothing is done to stop it. But the government didn’t need to be told that to take action. 

News site Aljazeera reports in their article that the government of the U.K. has added more restrictions on their public laws to slow down and ultimately prevent the spread of the coronavirus. 

These restrictions include the reduction of opening hours of pubs, bars and restaurants. Weddings will only be allowed to have 15 people in attendance, while funerals will be allowed to have up to 30. Plans of reopening live sporting events have been halted and citizens are being urged to work from home as soon as possible.

Despite the plans seeming effective on paper, not everyone seems to believe the U.K. is doing everything they can to fight the virus. John Edmunds, Dean of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, made a statement on StarHerald:

“We will have let the epidemic double and double and double again until we take those broader measures,” Edmunds told the BBC. “And then we’ll have the worst of both worlds, because then to slow the epidemic and bring it back down again… will mean putting the breaks on the epidemic for a very long time, very hard.”

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defended the policies in a statement also reported by StarHerald.

“I think that it’s a balanced approach, it’s a targeted approach and, actually, one that can make sure that we preserve the health gains that we’ve made, prevent the virus expanding exponentially, but also keep businesses, livelihoods and society open,” Raab said.

Whether or not the U.K. will see the results they desire is to be determined. One thing is for sure, though: the United States will not follow or enforce the same policies as the U.K.

CNBC reported a series of statements made on Tuesday by President Donald Trump to ensure that the U.S. will not be following in their steps. Their article made it clear that Trump will not put the nation under lockdown. This is not a departure from the President’s normal rhetoric of urging the state’s to lift restrictions. The federal government has still not taken a nation wide approach to the pandemic, allowing states to make decisions for themselves. 

The United States doesn’t seem to be the only country unphased and unimpressed with the U.K.’s efforts. The Guardian reports that the U.K. is receiving criticism around the world for not only their current efforts, but their lack of prior efforts as well. 

Writers voicing their critiques included Italian opinion writer Beppe Severgnini, London correspondent of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency Christoph Meyer and Irish commentator Fionnuala O’Connor. The following were quotes shared by The Guardian in the aforementioned article:

The British government “… did not pay enough attention to what was happening here, while Germany responded very well”, Severgnini said. “The two great British virtues — understatement and grace under fire — have turned out to not be a blessing.”

“Only a few weeks ago, Britain had the reputation of a country in which the coronavirus was only spreading cautiously,” Meyer wrote in an opinion piece published in several newspapers in Germany and Austria.

“Ministers of slim talent have bumbled through daily briefings and now big business-Conservative donors are impatient to reverse a shutdown so contrary to Brexiteer dreams,” Fionnuala O’Connor wrote in the broadly nationalist Irish News.

Regardless of what people think of these new restrictions, the U.K. is enforcing them.