Hancock emphasises ‘cautious’ approach
BORIS JOHNSON will set out a “cautious” plan to relax coronavirus restrictions when he unveils his road map out of lockdown, the Health Secretary has said, despite an accelerated target to offer vaccines to all adults by the end of July.
The Prime Minister will outline his blueprint for easing the stringent measures in England to Parliament today, amid a clamour of warnings from scientists to act gradually and calls from some Tory MPs to lift all legal restrictions by May.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisted that, despite the success of the vaccine roll-out so far, and the “understandable” urge to return to normal life, the Government’s goal is to take a “cautious but irreversible approach”.
In a series of broadcast interviews yesterday morning, he said there will be “weeks between the steps” so ministers can “watch carefully” the impact of each relaxation of the restrictions.
Mr Hancock said that one in three adults in the UK has now received a coronavirus vaccine, and that the Government is confident it has the supplies to meet the July 31 target and to vaccinate all adults over 50, and higher-risk groups, by April 15.
The Health Secretary told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “The vaccination programme, whilst clearly going very well, will take time to be able to reach all people who have significant vulnerability, especially because we need to get the second jab to everybody.
“We’ve got time that needs to be taken to get this right. The Prime Minister will set out the road map tomorrow and he will set out the full details – taking into account that we need to take a cautious but irreversible approach, that’s the goal.”
Leading epidemiologist Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said any easing of the lockdown must be gradual to prevent a surge in hospital admissions and deaths.
He told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show that, while vaccinating all adults by the end of July will make a “huge difference”, easing restrictions rapidly would put the NHS under pressure again.
“If we eased off very rapidly now, we would get another surge in hospitalisations, so we have to ease very gradually. Otherwise we will put the health service under pressure again and we’ll get a surge in hospitalisations, and indeed deaths,” he said.
However, Conservative former chief whip Mark Harper, leader of the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown-sceptic backbenchers, said all legal restrictions put in place in response to the pandemic should be lifted by the end of April. He told the BBC that such a plan represents “a fairly cautious approach” because it would mean the top nine priority groups will have received a first dose of vaccine by then.
Mr Harper said restrictions should not remain in place simply to prevent the emergence of new variants, warning that such a policy would result in curbs being in place indefinitely.
A further 215 people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid19 as of yesterday, while there were another 9,834 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.