[ad_1]
Boris Johnson has said he is ‘optimistic’ of being able to cautiously loosen lockdown when he unveils his roadmap on February 22.
The Prime Minister reaffirmed his immediate commitment to reopen schools on March 8 but also suggested he hoped to make announcements on non-essential shops and pubs.
Speaking on a visit to Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies plant in Billingham, Teesside, where the new Novavax vaccine will be manufactured, he said: ‘I’m optimistic, I won’t hide it from you. I’m optimistic, but we have to be cautious.’
He added: ‘Our children’s education is our number one priority, but then working forward, getting non-essential retail open as well and then, in due course as and when we can prudently, cautiously, of course we want to be opening hospitality as well.
‘I will be trying to set out as much as I possibly can in as much detail as I can, always understanding that we have to be wary of the pattern of disease. We don’t want to be forced into any kind of retreat or reverse ferret.’
Praising the ‘miracles of science’, the PM also predicted that in the long-term we will have ‘to learn to live with’ coronavirus after Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it could be a ‘treatable’ disease.
Mr Johnson’s bullishness came as private government data showed hospitalisation rates were falling faster than expected.
Modelling by Sage presented to Downing Street and leaked to The Times predicts hospital admissions and deaths will more than halve over the next month.
Patients battling coronavirus in hospital currently number around 24,000, but this figure is expected to be slashed to around 9,000 by mid-March.
Yesterday 1,908 patients were taken to hospital in the UK, a massive drop in admission rates since the peak in January when around 4,500 were admitted on a single day.
The R-rate has now been confirmed to be below 1 for the first time since July, with a pincer movement of vaccines and current restrictions credited for suppressing the virus.
But in spite of tumbling hospitalisation, case and death rates, government advisers are urging the PM to hold off loosening the lockdown for at least another two months.
The chair of the NHS Confederation Lord Adebowale said this morning the health service was still ‘on its knees’ and urged ministers to adopt extreme caution in any easing of restrictions.
The PM is being pulled the other way by his hawkish backbenches, who have called for a sweeping away of all curbs by May.
It came as:
- The number of Covid deaths in over-85s was found to be falling twice as fast it is in younger Britons;
- It was revealed illegal migrants were getting the Covid jab in plush quarantine hotels in Heathrow;
- China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, one of the team’s investigators said;
- Surge Covid testing will be rolled out in Hampshire, Middlesbrough and Walsall after cases of the variant were detected;
- Matt Hancock said he hopes Covid will become a ‘treatable’ virus and a disease we can ‘live with’ after all adults are offered a vaccine by September;
- There were 15,144 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the seven-day average down 26.3 per cent on the previous week;
- There were an additional 758 deaths, with the seven-day total down by 27.1 per cent.
Boris Johnson has said he is ‘optimistic’ of being able to cautiously loosen lockdown when he unveils his roadmap on the week of February 22. Pictured on a visit to Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies plant in Billingham, Teesside today
The PM today acknowledged that infections were still ‘at very high levels’ but were now ‘coming down very fast’.
Yesterday there were 15,144 new cases, bringing the seven-day average down 26.3 per cent on the previous week.
There were an additional 758 deaths, bringing the seven-day average down by 27.1 per cent.
Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling spurred the first lockdown last year, believes the falling rates vindicated the draconian restrictions.
He told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast: ‘We’re in a better place than I might have anticipated a month ago. The lockdown has really driven down cases quite fast.
‘They’re basically halving about every 17 days and that means in a month’s time — the Prime Minister’s talked about potentially reopening schools, we might have some bandwidth to do that, at least primary schools.’
Former cabinet minister David Davis also said reopening schools was ‘the first thing to do’.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It’s probably the lowest risk as children are less likely to have serious effects if they do catch it, there’s an indication young children catch it and transmit less easily.’
But Lord Adebowale urged ministers to revise the March 8 date for fear of it driving another spike in infections.
He said: ‘I understand the pressure to open schools. We need to do so very safely. I think mid or late-March is when we should be re-assessing.
‘We have had a number of false dawns when we have set dates, taken the action, then find ourselves having to row back very quickly.’
Mr Johnson’s roadmap could also see outdoor exercise rules eased at around the same time as schools.
The plans will then lay out a timetable for wider reopening, with shops likely to be first, followed by gyms and hairdressers and, finally, pubs and restaurants.
Ministers are expected to wait at least a couple of weeks between each step so they can assess the impact of lifting each measure.
The PM was tight-lipped today when pressed on reports of pubs and restaurants being able to reopen outdoor areas in April.
Plans have also been drawn up to save the summer sporting season with the Government ‘pushing hard’ to get stadiums and venues Covid safe before June, The Telegraph reports.
Officials are said to be devising new plans to make sure Wimbledon and the Euros go ahead this year such as home tests for fans in advance of sporting events, asymptomatic testing sites and rapid on-site testing and temperature checks.
Advisers are urging the Prime Minister to keep the brakes on for at least another two months and said he should apply a cautious route out of lockdown. Pictured: Revellers in Soho, London, in 2020
The latest advice means holiday plans for the period around Easter, which falls on April 4 this year, may still be ruined. Pictured: Shoppers walk along Oxford Street in London
Pictured: Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a face covering and a lab coat, reacts during his visit to a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in north east England on February 13, 2021
Mr Johnson is under pressure from the Covid Research Group of backbenchers to unlock sections of the economy for fear of permanent scarring.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, said last night: ‘It is just as dangerous for the nation to be too cautious in unlocking.
‘A sufficient proportion of the population will have been vaccinated by April.
‘There is no reason why the vast bulk of the economy – shops, pubs, restaurant – shouldn’t be allowed to begin to open then.’
He added that holidays in the UK should be allowed before Easter ‘or if not, immediately after’.
Ex-Brexit Secretary Mr Davis urged ministers to tread carefully to ensure any easing is permanent, rather than perpetuating the cycle of lockdowns.
He said: ‘The thing that worries me most is what I don’t want to see is yet more stop-start, relaxing it and going back again.
If I were running a small company and the government said they were going to relax some measures that affect you, I wouldn’t necessarily rush back unless I knew it was permanent.’
He added: ‘It’s an argument for that well-known scientific technique – suck it and see.’
Discussion has also turned to life after lockdown and learning to live with Covid in the future.
Matt Hancock has suggested that the UK will be dealing with coronavirus long term after revealing how he hopes vaccines and other treatments will mean we can ‘live with’ the virus like the flu.
The Health Secretary’s comments suggest that the government does not believe it can eradicate the virus completely, with it instead becoming a regular part of life.
Mr Hancock also revealed that he was confident the UK could offer the vaccine to all adults by September.
Speaking in an interview with the Telegraph, Mr Hancock said new drugs designed to tackle the virus should arrive this year.
This means that, combined with the vaccine rollout, Covid should become a ‘treatable disease’.
Mr Johnson today appeared to agree with his Health Secretary: ‘A nasty disease like this will roll through. A new disease like this will take time for humanity to adapt to, but we are.
‘The miracles of science are already making a huge difference, not just through vaccinations but therapies as well.
‘New therapies are being discovered the whole time which are enabling us to reduce mortality, improve our treatments of the disease.
‘I do think that in due time it will become something that we simply live with. Some people will be more vulnerable than others – that’s inevitable.
‘I think the Health Secretary spoke about the autumn. Let’s see where we get to.’
It comes as it was revealed that the NHS is on course to reach its target of vaccinating 15million Britons.
In a major step forward in the battle against coronavirus, 14,012,224 first doses of the Pfizer and Oxford jabs have been administered.
The total includes more than 500,000 from Thursday, meaning the 15million target should be hit today – 48 hours ahead of schedule.
Pictured: Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, visits a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility during a visit to the north east of England, in Stockton-on-Tees, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2021
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) report today suggested suggested there were 695,400 Covid-19 cases in England alone by February 6, down 31 per cent from a fortnight ago in yet another firm sign the second wave is in retreat. This equates to one in eighty people having the virus
R-rate falls below 1 for first time since July as government scientists reveal infections are halving every fortnight
By Eleanor Hayward Health Correspondent for the Daily Mail
Infections are falling across the whole country at the fastest rate since July, official figures show.
The so-called R-rate is now below one in every region and stands at between 0.7 and 0.9 for the whole of the UK, which is the lowest level since summer.
Government scientists said the number of infections is halving around every fortnight, boosting hopes it will be safe to reopen schools in March.
Latest data shows that cases, deaths and hospital admissions have all dropped by around a quarter in the past week.
Data published today by the ONS suggests infections in England have fallen by 31 per cent in the last fortnight, as the second wave is firmly in retreat
ONS figures show infections continued to plummet in every region except Yorkshire and the Humber, where estimates suggest they have plateaued
The ONS also found that Covid-19 infections are still falling in every age group in England as the nation endures lockdown
Yesterday, another 758 deaths and 15,144 cases were reported, taking the overall number of people testing positive to over four million. But the infection rate is now at 177 per 100,000, the lowest level for more than two months. It peaked at 642 per 100,000 on January 4.
As infections plummet, pressure on the NHS is easing significantly. There are 24,352 Covid-19 patients in hospitals, down 40 per cent from the peak.
Yesterday is the first time since July 31 the Government’s scientific Sage advisers said they were confident the R-rate was below one across the UK.
The rate, which was 1.4 in the first week of January, is the average number of people infected by someone with the virus. It must be below one for the epidemic to shrink.
Sage said: ‘We are confident the epidemic is shrinking across all NHS England regions.
‘However, prevalence of the virus remains high, so it remains important that everyone continues to stay at home.’
Although officials are hopeful that the downward trajectory will continue, Government scientists warned it could be months before cases are low enough to lift lockdown safely.
Yesterday, a separate weekly report from the Office for National Statistics confirmed infections were falling. Random testing of people in England found that one in 80 had the virus last week, the equivalent of 695,400 people in total.
This is down from one in 65 the week before and one in 50 at the start of January.
[ad_2]
Source link