PM urges caution after ‘small step to freedom’
BORIS Johnson has said the new freedoms being enjoyed in England as lockdown eases were the result of the sacrifices made over recent months but warned it was “inevitable” there were more deaths to come.
At a Downing Street press conference, he said it has been a “big day for many of us” with the first chance to see friends and family outdoors since the lockdown was imposed.
“It’s only because of months of sacrifice and effort that we can take this small step towards freedom today and we must proceed with caution,” he said.
“It’s great to see that yesterday we recorded the lowest number of new infections for six months, deaths and hospital admissions across the UK are continuing to fall.
“That wave is still rising across the channel and it’s inevitable, as we advance on this road map, that there will be more infections and unavoidably more hospitalisations, and sadly more deaths.” The Prime Minister also confirmed that a deal had been done with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to provide “fill and finish” capacity at its Barnard Castle facility in the North East of England for the Novavax vaccine.
Mr Johnson said the collaboration will be “giving us between 50 and 60 million doses of UK-made vaccine”, subject to approval from regulators.
Mr Johnson also gave reassurances over the availability of the Pfizer vaccine for a second dosage.
He said: “There isn’t any need to worry about shortage of Pfizer for the second dose as far as we can see at the moment.”
The Prime Minister also stressed the benefits of exercise to build the UK’s “resilience” to the virus, saying “I am personally thrilled that I will be able to play tennis, for instance”.
“Without being remotely preachy, I do hope that we can take advantage of this moment and the beautiful weather to play sport, to take exercise, to have fun and build our national resilience in that way too.”
Boris Johnson said the Government will be saying more on travel abroad on April 5.
He said: “I think that the most important thing that we’ve got to do right now as we continue to immunise great numbers of people in this country is to protect our country insofar as we can, it’s never going to be perfect, but do as much as we can to prevent the virus coming back in from abroad and new variants coming in from abroad.
“So, the rules about what you can do, what people can do, to see their families abroad will be governed entirely by the rules that cover travel abroad and people coming from abroad.
“At the moment, as you know, it’s still forbidden to travel, we’ll be saying a bit more on April 5 about what the global travel taskforce has come up with.
“Clearly, at the moment there are lots of countries that are on a red list, 35 countries are on a red list, where we have very stringent measures in place for them, for people arriving from those countries.”
Ministers will reportedly hold discussions on whether to add France to the UK’s travel ban list.
The measure will be discussed at a meeting of the “Covid O” committee on Tuesday amid rising coronavirus cases across the Channel, according to the Daily Telegraph.
From April 6, hauliers from outside the UK and Ireland visiting England for more than two days will need to take a Covid-19 test within 48 hours of their arrival and once every 72 hours afterwards.
But with growing signs of a third wave spreading across continental Europe, there is speculation that the Government could go further by adding France to the UK’s red list. Some 4,872 patients are in intensive care in France, nearly matching the most during the country’s previous coronavirus surge in November.