The threat of a second lockdown shows why the government must not end financial support

The United Kingdom is on the brink of a second serious outbreak of the novel coronavirus, with the country heading towards 50,000 new cases a day by the middle of October if the current trajectory is not halted, the government’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance have warned. Calls to the non-emergency services and steadily increasing hospitalisations point to a second wave of infections, just in time for the autumn and winter: the exact scenario that the government wanted to avoid back in March.