PM pledges to retain ‘cautious, prudent’ approach
BORIS JOHNSON has said easing England’s lockdown will be based on a “cautious and prudent approach”, as he was urged to focus on data rather than dates when lifting restrictions.
The Prime Minister was asked whether he agrees with Professor Dame Angela McLean’s comments to the Commons Science and Technology Committee that any unlocking should be based on “data, not dates”.
Speaking to reporters yesterday from a mass vaccination centre in Cwmbran, Wales, the Prime Minister said: “I do think that’s absolutely right. That’s why we’ll be setting out what we can on Monday about the way ahead, and it will be based firmly on a cautious and prudent approach to coming out of lockdown in such a way to be irreversible.”
Mr Johnson said easing restrictions should be done “cautiously” as he noted that hospitality was one of the last sectors to reopen after the first lockdown. “I know there’s a lot of understandable speculation in the papers,” he told reporters in south Wales. “I would just advise everybody just wait, we’ll try and say as much as we can on that.”
Giving evidence to the Commons Science and Technology Committee, Dame Angela, chief scientific adviser at the Ministry of Defence, was asked if the R value needs to be at a certain level before restrictions can be eased. The R value represents the average number of people each Covid-positive person goes on to infect and is currently estimated to be between 0.7 and 0.9 across the UK, according to the latest Government figures.
“I think the timing is probably more important; it’s how many of the people who are more at risk of, that’s a mixture of old people or people with underlying conditions, have been vaccinated before we do more unlocking,” she said. “The important issue is to really watch very closely what is happening, so we do everything we can to decide whether it is a good moment to take another step in unlocking. Let’s use data, not dates.”
Dame Angela also told MP: “I think we can say very, very clearly, don’t unlock too fast because, if you unlock a lot, while a lot of the most vulnerable are still unvaccinated – genuinely we risk disaster quite, frankly.”
Earlier, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson struck a similar tone to Professor McLean and urged Mr Johnson to focus on “data, not just dates”. He warned that the number of coronavirus infections needs to plummet to under 50,000 before any easing should be considered.
The Government said a further 738 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of yesterday, bringing the UK total by that measure to 118,933.
The Government also said that, as of 9am yesterday, there had been a further 12,718 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. It brings the total in the UK to 4,071,185.