PM tells public: ‘Don’t take foot off throat of Covid-19
BORIS Johnson has called on Britons to be vigilant in the fight against coronavirus, insisting now was not the time to be “taking our foot off the throat of the beast”.
At a Downing Street press briefing the Prime Minister urged people to “keep our eye on the prize” as he said he was now convinced, with the approach of a vaccine, that “by April, things genuinely will be much, much better”.
His remarks came as some 23 million people – 40 per cent of England, including much of the north west, north east and the Midlands – were placed under the severest Covid-19 tier restrictions, following a lockdown, which threatens a large-scale Tory backbench rebellion when the matter comes to a vote next week.
At the No 10 press conference, Mr Johnson said that with increased community testing and vaccines there was real
hope that by spring the “era of restrictions” would be over.
“But to get there we must first navigate a hard winter when the burden on our NHS is heaviest and the cold weather favours the virus,” he insisted.
The PM called on people to stay focused and not ease up, noting: “In a few months we will have a vaccine; I’m convinced of it now. By April, things genuinely will be much much
better but what we want to avoid is relaxing now too much; taking our foot off the throat of the beast now when we’ve got it in a much better place than where it was before the autumn measures came in.”
At the press conference, Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, urged people to “buy into” the crossborder Christmas strategy but “not do stupid things”.