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22 October 2020 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7907 / Categories: Features
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Marshal (COVID) law

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Nicholas Dobson discusses the Blitz spirit & deploying trained ‘Marshals’ in the fight against COVID-19

In brief

  • While COVID is serious, it isn’t the Blitz.
  • On 8 October 2020 the government issued guidance to encourage local authorities to deploy COVID-19 secure marshals.

‘It’s understandable that in a crisis politicians reach for wartime metaphors—but they don’t always fit.’ So wrote in The Spectator on 22 September 2020 (https://bit.ly/2TkwTtz) former consultant pathologist and pathology professor, Dr John Lee. He was right.

For on 14 March 2020 as COVID-19 (COVID) began to bite, Health Secretary Matt Hancock, wrote in The Telegraph that: ‘Despite the pounding every night, the rationing, the loss of life, [our grandparents] pulled together in one gigantic national effort.’ But today ‘our generation is facing its own test, fighting a very real and new disease’. Everyone will be ‘asked to make sacrifices, to protect themselves and others, especially those most vulnerable to this disease’. Nevertheless, he reassured: ‘With our clear action plan, listening to the advice of the best science, and taking the action we all must, I

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hogan Lovells—Lisa Quelch

Hogan Lovells—Lisa Quelch

Partner hire strengthens global infrastructure and energy financing practice

Sherrards—Jan Kunstyr

Sherrards—Jan Kunstyr

Legal director bolsters international expertise in dispute resolution team

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Corporate governance and company law specialist joins the team

NEWS

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