The British government has defended its decision to loosen the lockdown after scientists warned that it was too soon to ease restrictions. Housing secretary Robert Jenrick described the new measures, which will see some children return to school from Monday and allow up to six people to meet outdoors, as modest.
“We’re going to be doing this in a cautious and data-driven way in the days and weeks ahead,” he told a press conference at Downing Street.
A number of scientists who have been advising the government on coronavirus have warned that the number of infections, at about 8000 a day, is still too high. And this week’s changes, which will also see the return of professional sport without spectators, come into effect as the contact tracing system launched last week has yet to become fully operational and a contact tracing app has been postponed indefinitely.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said Britain was not starting from the same position as countries like South Korea which had testing and tracing systems in place before the current pandemic. But he insisted that the British system, which Boris Johnson has promised would be "world-beating", will be adequate to the country's needs.
“What I can tell you is that the system is up and running, we’ve got the 25,000 tracers, we’ve got the ability for 10,000 new cases to check all of their contacts and obviously when we get the app up and in operation which will be coming soon, we need to make sure we’ve got that right, that will further strengthen our ability. The reason test and tracing is so important is precisely because it allows us to take targeted measures which means as we open up the economy people’s lives [are] going a bit more closer to normal, we can be sure that we’ve got the thing under control,” he told the BBC.
With temperatures in the mid-20s around Britain on Sunday, thousands crowded onto beaches and into parks and hundreds of people stood close together outside the United States embassy in London protesting at police violence against black men. Deputy chief medical officer Jennie Harries urged the public to be cautious as restrictions were eased.
Risk transmission
“Where we are seeing that government is easing measures the public really, really need to stick to those messages and it is not just about what it is possible to do, it’s about what it is sensible to do and what is sensible to do is have as few interactions as possible as you can with other people in all settings,” she told the Downing Street press conference.
“I think it’s really important that people just try to use these measures sensibly for their own benefit but don’t risk transmission to other people.”
As polls showed the government’s popularity slumping following the controversy over Dominic Cummings’s lockdown breaches, Dr Harries said that following the rules was for her a matter of personal and professional integrity.
“The important thing is they are rules for all of us, and it’s really important as we go through into this next critical phase that we do follow them to the best of our abilities, and even minimise if you like, the freedoms that are there to ensure that we can very gently come out of the pandemic,” she said.
