Re-opening country will be gradual, insists PM
BORIS Johnson has warned the UK is still in a “pretty precarious” position as ministers prepare for easing of lockdown restrictions from early March.
The Prime Minister said the process would be gradual, with no great “open sesame” moment when curbs on freedoms are suddenly lifted.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged Britons to stick to coronavirus regulations and not “blow it” as the vaccination campaign makes progress, with more than four million people having received a first dose.
The latest figures showed a record 37,475 people were in hospital with coronavirus, while there had been a further 599 reported deaths within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 and 37,535 new cases.
The Prime Minister said decisions on loosening England’s stay-home order will be based in part on progress in the vaccination programme.
The Government is on track to vaccinate around 15 million high-priority people across the UK by February 15, including health and social care staff, the elderly and people in care homes.
Once those vaccines have taken effect, around two to three weeks later ministers will consider whether lockdown measures can be eased.
Mr Johnson, on a visit to the manufacturing facility for the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine, said: “I understand completely that people want to get back to normal as fast as we possibly can.
“It depends on the vaccination programme going well, it depends on there being no new variants that throw our plans out and we have to mitigate against, and it depends on everybody, all of us, remembering we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Mid-February would be the time to take stock of the situation, he said.
“It’s only really then that we can talk about the way ahead and what steps we can take to relax. I’m afraid I’ve got to warn people it will be gradual, you can’t just open up in a great open sesame, in a great bang.because I’m afraid the situation is still pretty precarious.”
Mr Johnson suggested “things will be very different by the spring” and claimed the UK would be capable of a “very powerful economic recovery” as it emerges from the crisis.
At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Hancock said the vaccine programme is “one of the biggest civilian operations that this country has ever undertaken”.
But despite the progress – which has seen more than half the over-80s and half of elderly care home residents given a jab – Mr Hancock urged adherence to the rules on social distancing.
“Don’t blow it now, we’re on the route out,” he said. “We’re protecting the most vulnerable, we’re getting the virus under control.”
In other developments: Family doctors have been told by NHS officials in England to have a list of back-up patients and staff who can receive the jab at short notice to prevent any waste of vaccine stock.
The Welsh Government faced accusations of a “go-slow” vaccination strategy after First Minister Mark Drakeford said there was “no point” in rushing to administer all available doses this week if it meant vaccinators were “standing around with nothing to do for another month”.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was “hopeful” that all adults in Scotland would have been given their first dose of coronavirus vaccine by September.
NHS data showed London had administered the lowest number of vaccinations in England’s regions, with a total of 417,225 first and second doses between December 8 and January 17, while the Midlands had delivered 746,487.