Lockdown will only be lifted gradually – PM
BORIS Johnson has warned the UK is still in a “pretty precarious” position as ministers prepare for the easing of lockdown restrictions from early March.
The Prime Minister said the process would be gradual, with no great “open sesame” moment when curbs on freedoms are suddenly lifted.
He said decisions on loosening England’s stay-home order will be made based on progress in the vaccination programme, which had been “very encouraging” despite concerns that some parts of the nation are falling behind.
More than four million people in the UK have received a first coronavirus vaccine dose.
The Government is on track to vaccinate around 15 million highpriority people across the UK by February 15, including health and social care staff, the elderly and people in care homes. Once those vaccines have taken effect, around two to three weeks later ministers will consider whether lockdown measures can be eased.
Mr Johnson, visiting the manufacturing facility for the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine, said: “I understand completely that people want to get back to normal as fast as we possibly can. It does depend on things going well.
“It depends on the vaccination programme going well, it depends on there being no new variants that throw our plans out and we have to mitigate against, and it depends on everybody, all of us, remembering that we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Mid-February would be the time to take stock of the situation, he said.
“It’s only really then that we can talk about the way ahead and what steps we can take to relax.
“I’m afraid I’ve got to warn people it will be gradual, you can’t just open up in a great open sesame, in a great bang, because I’m afraid the situation is still pretty precarious.”
Mr Johnson suggested “things will be very different by the spring” and claimed the UK would be capable of a “very powerful economic recovery” as it emerges from the crisis.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told yesterday’s No 10 news conference the coronavirus outbreak is being brought “under control”.
Mr Hancock said that more than four million people have now been vaccinated and that the over-70s and the clinically vulnerable were now receiving the jab. He urged people to stick with the regulations as the programme continued to roll out.
“Don’t blow it now. We are on the route out. We are protecting the most vulnerable. We are getting the virus under control,” he said.
Data analysed by the Press Association shows that, of the 315 local areas in England, 36 (11%) have seen a rise in case rates in the seven days to January 13 compared with the previous week, while 279 (89%) have seen a fall. All areas in the top ten have seen a weekon-week drop, with only three areas in the top 50 seeing an increase in rates.
Knowsley, on Merseyside, has the highest rate in England, with 1,853 new cases recorded in the seven days to January 13 – 1,228.3 cases per 100,000 people. Barking and Dagenham in London has the second-highest rate.
Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme things are “improving slowly” there, but he said: “I think it will be certainly the middle of February before we begin to see any more significant lifting of the lockdown.”
The national medical director for NHS England, Professor Stephen Powis, said that the vaccination programme will not have an impact on hospital admissions or death rates until “well into February”. He said infection rates in London had “slowed down” but there was “less of a slowdown” in the rest of the country, adding: “For the next few weeks and into February, it’s really important that everybody sticks to those social distancing guidelines.”