Hancock: End of lockdown is long, long, long way away
MATT Hancock has warned that the lifting of lockdown in England is a ‘long, long, long way’ away.
Ministers need to see the impact of the vaccination drive before they consider easing restrictions, said the Health Secretary.
He added, however, that there is evidence the current measures are working as new infections fell to their lowest level yesterday since before Christmas.
The UK recorded 30,004 new Covid cases yesterday – the lowest since December 19.
Statistics are sometimes skewed at weekends but the new infections were below the 38,598 total reported last Sunday and the figure of 54,940 the week before. Some 610 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were also reported yesterday, bringing the national total to 97,939.
Despite the fall in infections, Mr Hancock said case numbers were still ‘incredibly high’ and the Health Service remained under intense pressure.
‘There is early evidence that the lockdown is starting to bring cases down but we are a long, long, long way from being low enough because the case rate was incredibly high,’ he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme. ‘You can see the pressure on the NHS, you can see it every day.’
Ministers have promised to review lockdown restrictions in mid-February once 15million high-risk people have the vaccine.
But Mr Hancock suggested they may need to wait longer even if the vaccination target is reached. In an interview with Times Radio, he said: ‘We are on track for that in terms of the rollout of the vaccine.
‘But we don’t yet know the impact of that on the ground so we don’t know when we will be able to lift the measures but I want to lift them carefully and as soon as safely possible.’
Mr Hancock insisted he still believed the country would have ‘ a great British summer’. He added: ‘I have got a high degree of confidence that by then these restrictions can be being lifted or lifted entirely.’
When pushed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on when restrictions would be lifted, Mr Hancock said: ‘It’s one of the many things that we don’t yet know the answer to.’