UK’s Hancock: To reopen in stages after driving down South African variant
The UK will only emerge from lockdown in stages even though the coronavirus cases of the more infectious South African variant have been driven down, the country’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday.
Key quotes
“There was also early data showing that the faster-than-expected vaccine rollout was reducing transmissions and easing pressure on hospitals.”
“But most of those are now historic cases and from over a month ago.”
“The latest data shows that there’s around a dozen new ones, so a much, much smaller number.”
“It is very important to see the impact of steps that we’re taking.”
“We want to set out a roadmap which gives people guidance in terms of how we think we’ll be able to do this. We also absolutely will be vigilant to the data on the way.
“We’ve currently seen other new variants that thankfully there’s very, very, very few of in this country now, but we’ve got to protect against them.”
His comments came a day before Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlines his plan to ease restrictions in England.
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