PM warns that a second wave of coronavirus hitting UK is ‘ inevitable’

A second wave of Covid- 19 hitting the UK is “inevitable” as the UK government examines whether it needs to “go further” with current restrictions, Boris Johnson has said.

The Prime Minister spoke during a visit to the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre construction site near Oxford yesterday and said there was “no question” the country was heading the same way as France and Spain.

He told broadcasters: “Obviously, we’re looking very carefully at the spread of the pandemic as it evolves over the last few days and there’s no question, as I’ve said for several weeks now, that we could expect ( and) are now seeing a second wave coming in.

“We are seeing it in France, in Spain, across Europe – it has been absolutely, I’m afraid, inevitable we were going to see it in this country.”

He said a second lockdown was the “last thing anybody wants” and said the current measures would need to be kept “under review” but added the UK government was looking at whether it should “go further”.

Mr Johnson added: “But as we look at this particular curve and what is happening now, clearly we are going to keep everything under review.

I don’t want to get into a second national lockdown at all, it is the last thing anybody wants.

“I don’t want to go into bigger lockdown measures at all, we want to keep schools open. We want to keep the economy open as far as we possibly can, we want to keep businesses going.”

Asked about the possibility of a two- week October halfterm in England to bring in a short lockdown, Mr Johnson said: “What I can certainly say about parents and schools is we want to keep the schools open, that is going to happen.

“We will be looking at what we can do to intensify things t hat help bring t he rate of infection down.”