Local lockdowns could be reintroduced when national lockdown restrictions are lifted in England, a government minister has warned.
Boris Johnson announced on Monday that the third stage of his non-lockdown roadmap will take place on May 17.
Mr Johnson also confirmed that England remain ‘on track’ to see a complete end to lockdown restrictions by June 21.
He said: He said at the Downing Street press conference: “This unlock represents a very important step on the roadmap to return to normalcy and I have no doubts that we can go further.
“Subject to the impact of Stage Three on the data, we remain on track to move to Stage Four on June 21.
“And to give businesses more time to prepare, we’ll talk more later this month about exactly what the world will look like and what role there could be – if any – for certification and social distancing.” .
But Environment Secretary George Eustice said the government “will not rule out” local restrictions in the future to stay abreast of regional outbreaks of Covid-19.
He said, “We can’t rule anything out.
“But our plan that was laid out by the Prime Minister, the reason we’re incredibly cautious about getting out of the lockdown, is that we want it to be the last one.
“We want to try to avoid having to enter a multi-level system and regionalization.
“We tried this last fall, we know that in the end we had to go for a full lockdown.”
He added: “We now have confidence in the immunization program – it is reducing transmission rates as well as hospitalizations and mortality, so that is our goal.
“But there is always a risk and the biggest risk we have is a new variant against which the vaccine is less effective.”
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Source: www.times-series.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-05-12 11:00:59
