Lockdown ‘could last until March’
TOUGH new coronavirus restrictions may have to remain in place until March, senior Cabinet minister Michael Gove warned, as England enters its third national lockdown.
On Monday, Boris Johnson announced stringent new controls – including closing schools to most pupils – in an attempt to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed by a surge in new infections.
The Prime Minister raised the prospect that the vaccination programme being rolled out across the country could enable restrictions to be progressively eased from mid-February.
But yesterday Mr Gove said relaxation of the rules may have to wait until the following month – and that even then some measures may have to remain in place.
“We will keep these constantly under review, but we can’t predict with certainty that we will be able to lift restrictions in the week commencing February 15-22,” he told Sky News. “What we will be doing is everything that we can to make sure that as many people as possible are vaccinated, so that we can begin to progressively lift restrictions. I think it is right to say that, as we enter March, we should be able to lift some
of these restrictions, but not necessarily all.”
Yesterday, at a Downing Street press conference, Mr Johnson said that 1.3 million people in the UK – including 1.1 million in England – have now received the coronavirus vaccine.
The Prime Minister told a No 10 press conference the figures include 650,000 people over the age of 80, which was 23% of all the over-80s in England.
It came as the UK recorded 60,916 labconfirmed coronavirus cases as of 9am yesterday – the highest daily total reported so far. The Government said a further 830 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.
Professor Chris Whitty said that one in 50 people being estimated to have coronavirus across the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics, is “really quite a large number indeed”.
In London, an estimated one in 30 people in private households had Covid-19 between December 27 and January 2, the ONS said.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, unveiled a fresh £4.6 billion support package for businesses across the UK dealt a further crippling blow by enforced closures.
It includes one-off top-up grants worth up to £9,000 for firms in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors to help nurse them through to the spring.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has also imposed a lockdown on Scotland for the rest of January, with a legal requirement to stay at home and schools closed to most pupils until February.
Schools and colleges in Wales will also remain closed until at least January 18, while in Northern Ireland – which is already under a six-week lockdown – “stay at home” restrictions will be brought back in and schools will remain closed.