UK CORONAVIRUS CASES COULD HIT 50,000 A DAY BY JULY 19, JOHNSON WARNS

Mon 05 July 2021:

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom could reach 50,000 per day within coming days as he confirmed that the government is planning to go ahead with the final stage of its roadmap out of lockdown and lift all restrictions by July 19.

“I want to stress from the outset that this pandemic is far from over … as we predicted in the roadmap in February we’re seeing cases very rapidly, there could be 50,000 cases detected per day by the 19th [of July]. As we predicted we’re seeing rising hospital admissions and we reconcile ourselves sadly to more deaths from COVID,” Johnson said at a press conference.

According to Johnson, a final decision on whether to go ahead with step 4 of the roadmap will be taken next week, but he looked confident that from July 19, there will be no limits on the number of people allowed to gather indoors or outdoors, and that the one-meter rule for social distancing as well as the capacity caps on large sports and cultural events will be lifted.

Nightclubs and all remaining businesses will also be allowed to re-open, wearing face masks will not longer be compulsory in shops and public transport and there will be no limits on the number of visitors to care home residences.

Johnson also said that the vaccine rollout will be accelerated further by reducing the interval between the two doses from 12 weeks to eight for people under 40s, but noted that nobody would need to demonstrate their vaccination or testing status to attend sports and cultural events.

“We must be honest with ourselves, if we can’t reopen society in the next few weeks… when will we be able to return to normal?” the prime minister stressed.

The so-called Freedom Day was delayed by a month in June, due to a surge in coronavirus cases linked to the prevalence of the Delta variant, first identified in Indian.

On Monday, the UK reported another 27,334 COVID-19 cases and a further 9 deaths, a total tally of 4.9 million and 128,231 fatalities since the pandemic began.

So far, over 79 million vaccine doses have been administered in the UK, and 64 percent of all adults have received two doses.

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