Boris returns, warns of ‘maximum risk’

LONDON:British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to his office in Downing Street on Monday after recovering from Covid-19, but resisted demands to ease an ongoing lockdown due to “maximum risk” of a second wave. Johnson, who left hospital last week, urged people in the UK to “contain your impatience” with the lockdown.

He said in a statement, “If this virus were a physical assailant, an unexpected and invisible mugger, which I can tell you from personal experience, then this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor. And so it follows that this is the moment of opportunity. This is the moment when we can press home our advantage. It is also the moment of maximum risk.”

Johnson added, “I want to get this economy moving as fast as I can but I refuse to throw away all the effort and the sacrifice of the British people and to risk a second major outbreak.”

Later, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that small and medium enterprises can get loans of up to £50,000, guaranteed 100% by the government.

An analysis by a team of experts led by David Leon at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said on Monday the UK may have passed its peak in daily deaths on April 8.

Also, a forecast released on Monday reiterated recent assessments of downward economic growth.