Hancock suggests Covid restrictions likely to last past May
The government will take a “cautious” approach to easing lockdown measures, the health secretary has said, as he hinted that restrictions may stay in place into the summer months.
The government has set out plans to offer a first dose of the vaccine to all over-50s and those with serious underlying health conditions by mid- April.
But asked this morning whether that will mean restrictions can be lifted in May, Matt Hancock told Sky News that ministers would remain “vigilant”.
“We’ve seen throughout this pandemic there are moments when things haven’t gone as expected, for instance when the new variant was discovered in Kent,” he said.
“That had a big impact on how we had to manage the pandemic,” he added. “We have to protect against them and assess how the vaccine is against those new variants, particularly against the ones first discovered in Brazil and South America. We’ve got to remain vigilant against any new variants.”
Hancock noted that there are still almost 20,000 people currently in hospital in Covid, warning that ministers would take the time needed to “get this right”.
Lockdown roadmap
The Prime Minister will set out his “roadmap” tomorrow for lifting lockdown restrictions.
Boris Johnson is expected to announce 8 March for reopening schools, but will likely hold off on providing specific dates for lifting other restrictions.
Ministers will likely want to assess the impact of returning students to the classroom on case rates before lifting any other significant restrictions.
However, Johnson is understood to be keen to allow more outdoor recreation as England heads into spring. Doing so would allow people to meet up for reasons other than exercise for the first time in months, though a wider easing of household mixing restrictions is unlikely to be on the cards for quite some time.
Under current rules, people are only allowed to leave their houses for a select few reasons including essential shopping, work and exercise.
Further exercise allowances will be followed by the reopening non-essential retail in the government’s timeline for exiting lockdown.
Ministers are extremely concerned about the economic consequences of extending lockdown longer than is absolutely necessary, after figures revealed last week showed the UK economy contracted a record 9.9 per cent in 2020.
Vaccine targets
It comes after the PM yesterday announced a new target to offer a first dose of the vaccine to all adults in the UK by the end of July. Ministers had initially planned to vaccinate over-18s by September.
The significant scale-up will ramp up pressure on Johnson to unveil a clear plan for lifting restrictions.
Tory backbenchers have insisted the rapid rollout of the vaccination programme, along with plummeting coronavirus cases and hospitalisations, means tough restrictions are no longer warranted.
But Hancock told the BBC this morning that hospitalisations still remained “too high” for any significant easing of lockdown measures.
“There are signs that the number of people in hospital are falling much more sharply than they were in the first wave and there’s further analysis to be done on that,” he said.
“Clearly the level is still far too high, that’s why the Prime Minister is setting out a roadmap. We can’t lift the measures right now, but we can see that direction of travel.”
Downing Street said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) would publish its priority list for the second phase of the vaccine programme in due course.
It comes as the Prime Minister will a meeting of senior ministers in the Covid S committee this afternoon to finalise his roadmap before being signed off by the Cabinet tomorrow.