Easing of lockdown is the right step, says UK foreign minister
nLONDON: British foreign minister Dominic Raab on Sunday defended the government’s “careful” loosening of the coronavirus lockdown, saying it was the “right step to be taking at this moment in time”.
PM Boris Johnson has come under fire from some scientists for easing a lockdown put in place 10 weeks ago. “We are confident that this is the right step to be taking at this moment in time,” Raab told Sky News.
From Monday, up to six people will be able to meet outside in England, some school classes will restart, elite competitive sport can resume without fans and more than 2 million people who have been “shielding” will be allowed to spend time outdoors.
At the heart of the strategy to ease the lockdown is a system to test and trace those people who have come into contact with confirmed cases of Covid-19.
However, several experts on Sunday warned against easing lockdown restrictions since the numbers of deaths and cases in the UK are not low enough.
The experts concerned over easing curbs include those on the influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), leading to a growing perception that the decision to relax is a political one driven by eagerness to kick-start sections of the dwindling UK economy.
Devi Shridhar, a public health expert at Edinburgh University, said the current daily rate of thousands of new cases was unacceptably high. “Watching carefully what’s happening in east Asia and combining this with what we know so far about this virus, it does indeed feel like mistakes are being repeated.”