UK government plans for next phase but warns of a point of "maximum risk"
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab took Thursday’s Downing Street briefing and spoke about the next stages in the UK’s fight against coronavirus.
After speculation in the UK press about a possible easing of lockdown restrictions, Dominic Raab made clear that any upcoming changes would be modest. The foreign secretary appeared optimistic about the positive effect that the measures have had thus far and thanked the British public for following government advice.
“We’ve now passed the peak of the virus, the NHS hasn’t been overwhelmed and we haven’t seen hospital wards overwhelmed with patients”.
He revealed that the all-important R-rate had been reduced by the isolation measures, an important facet of the ‘Five Tests’ that the government is using to judge the efficacy of its response.
“Today cabinet was updated on SAGE’s advice on the progress that we’ve made to date, as a result of the social distancing measures that we’ve put in place. The R-level which signifies the rate of infection is now between 0.5 - 0.9. The overall number of new cases has been steadily falling and the rate of death is steadily falling.”
With this in mind he announced that Boris Johnson would be addressing the country over the weekend to outline what he called the government’s “road map” of future measures.
Next stage
“We are now in a position to start to think about the next stage in the fight against the pandemic.
“This weekend the prime minister will set out the next steps that we can responsibly take over the coming weeks guided by the scientific advice”.
However he urged caution with still so little known about the virus and said that any changes would be “modest, small, incremental and very carefully monitored”. Mr Raab emphasised that although the signs are positive the danger is still very much there and that the government reserved the right to reintroduce more stringent measures if needed.
“The point at which we make even the slightest changes to the current guidance will be a point of maximum risk”, he said.
“If people don’t follow the rules or we see that the r level goes back up then we will tighten the measures back up.”