Thousands of lives would have been saved if the Government had imposed a two-week “circuit-break” lockdown when advised to by experts in September, a leading medical figure has said.

Boris Johnson has faced heavy criticism for failing to call a lockdown last month, after SAGE and Labour leader Keir Starmer called for a 'circuit break'

Professor Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious diseases epidemiology at University College London, and a member of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) advisory committee, said such a move would also have caused less damage to the economy than the four-week lockdown outlined by the Government on Saturday.

Asked what difference it would have made if the Government had taken the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), Prof Hayward, speaking in a personal capacity, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Well, we can’t turn back the clock.

“But, I think if we had chosen a two-week circuit-break at that time we would definitely have saved thousands of lives.

Mr Johnson resisted calls for lockdown until Saturday (
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Getty)

“And, we would clearly have inflicted substantially less damage on our economy than the proposed four-week lockdown will do.”

Professor Hayward said shutting down multiple areas of transmission at the same time was the “single most effective way of stopping the virus from spreading”.

He attended the Sage meeting on September 21 that recommended a circuit-break around half term.

Professor Hayward also stressed it would have caused less economic harm (
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AFP via Getty Images)

He added: “Early action is essential, and waiting to see if less intense measures are going to work is really quite a dangerous way of doing things.”

But Dr Susan Hopkins, deputy director of Public Health England, said there was a “fine balancing act” about when to implement a lockdown.

She told Times Radio Breakfast: “I think that even if we had done a lockdown earlier, it’s likely we would probably need one again later on. So there’s a fine balancing act about when this occurs.

“What the lockdown is there to do is to reduce the number of cases and ideally half them, or even reduce them further than that.

“So what we need to be able to do is see that now, and see that we’re able to effectively do that, and that means the whole of society to be ready to take the steps with us to reduce our transmissions and reduce our contacts.”