WORST MAY BE OVER IN 12 WEEKS

BORIS Johnson has optimistically predicted that Britain can “turn the tide” on coronavirus within the next 12 weeks.

But workers will have to wait until today to find out what the Prime Minister will do to keep them in a job during the national shutdown.

Johnson used his daily press conference to issue a typically upbeat message that he is “absolutely confident that we can send coronavirus packing in this country” by mid-June.

With his scientific advisers looking on, Johnson said progress on testing for the virus combined with the need to keep up social distancing and stay at home if ill would beat the disease.

He said: “I know it’s tough, I know it’s difficult but please follow the advice. If we do this together, we will save many thousands of lives.”

Johnson also urged businesses to stand by their employees, with an announcement on wage support due from Chancellor Rishi Sunak due today after intensive talks with the CBI business organisation and the TUC in the Treasury.

Johnson said to business leaders: “Stand by your workers because we will stand by you.”

In a dig at Gordon Brown, who called on him to do “considerably more” to protect people’s jobs, the PM said it would not just be the banks that would be bailed out. He said: “This time we will make sure we are there for the people who really suffer.”

Johnson revealed the Government was in negotiation to buy new kit “as simple as a pregnancy test, which can tell whether you have had the disease”.

He said knowing whether you have had Covid-19 would mean those people could get back to work. Johnson added: “By the same token, we’re massively increasing the testing to see whether you have it now and ramping up daily testing from 5000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000.”

The editor of medical journal The

Lancet said Britain could start to ease its ban on socialising by early summer.

Richard Horton said his journal was receiving research from around the world exploring ways to keep the virus suppressed while resuming some kind of normal life.

He said: “I think we will see these restrictions imposed for maybe two to three months and then, over the course of the summer, a very gradual staged relaxation of those restrictions which will take us into the autumn months.”