BRITAIN IS ‘LONG WAY’ FROM EASING LOCKDOWN, SAYS HEALTH MINISTER HANCOCK

Sun 24 January 2021:

Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday the country was still a long way from being able to relax a national lockdown despite evidence that the restrictions were bringing down the rate of COVID-19 infections.

“There is early evidence that the lockdown is starting to bring cases down. But we’re a long, long, long way from that from being low enough because the case rate was incredibly high and you can see the pressure on the NHS (National Health Service),” he said during an interview on Sky News.

Asked about how worried people should be about the deadliness of the UK variant, says it is important people follow the rules.

The scientists do think it may be more deadly, and they have put various estimates on that – from about 10% more deadly to a bit more than that. We are not exactly certain about how much more deadly. But what matters is we have to get this virus under control and the only way you do that is by reducing social contact and following the rules.

Hancock, whose period in self-isolation after he was pinged by the NHS app, has come to an end this morning, says one of the studies suggests the UK variant could be up to 50% more deadly and points out there are still uncertainties around it.

Closing the border

Speaking on BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, the UK shadow foreign secretary has said – in response to a question about whether the country should close its borders to countries without high vaccine coverage in the future – that the government needed to take tougher measures.

There is no question we need to take border security much more seriously … We would fully expect the government to bring in tougher quarantine measures, a proper testing strategy and check up on the people quarantining. Only three in 100 people who come into the UK have any checks on quarantining.