Boris Johnson says time for national lockdowns is over
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the time for using national lockdowns to control the coronavirus pandemic had passed, adding that local measures could now be used instead.
“We are now moving into a different phase”, he said, “”rather than going back to the national lockdown”.
However, he warned that the economic cost of the pandemic would be “painful and expensive to make up”.
“There will be some difficult times ahead,” he said. “We will manage our finances as prudently and as sensibly as we can.”
The Prime Minister’s words came after it was announced this morning that the UK’s chief medical officers have agreed to downgrade the coronavirus threat level to level three, as cases start to decline.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) has recommended the threat level be downgraded from level four – an epidemic is in general circulation and transmission is high or rising exponentially.
Speaking during a visit to a school in Hertfordshire, Johnson also repeated his previous comments that people should “watch this space” when it comes to relaxing social distancing measures from two metre.
The government is currently reviewing the two metre rule. The prime minister added:
“We will be putting in further changes as the science allows. I think that’s what the public also wants to see, they want to see us working with the reality.”
He also said that it was his goal that all pupils be back in school for the autumn.
More to follow.