The Prime Minister made two important comments earlier this week:
“We want this lockdown to be the last. And we want progress to be cautious but also irreversible.”
Mr Johnson added: “Although the vaccination programme is going well, we still don’t have enough data about the exact effectiveness of the vaccines in reducing the spread of infection.”
This provides important context ahead of next Monday (22 February) when the Prime Minister will set out a roadmap for the gradual easing of national lockdown restrictions, focusing on “data and not dates”.
Although we continue to see the case rate and number of COVID-19 hospital patients decline, we should remember this is relative to the peak spike we saw in January. Around 20,100 COVID-19 patients are currently in hospital across the UK – which is only slightly lower than at the first peak last April.
We have all made huge sacrifices and don’t want to see these hard-won gains squandered, slipping back to where we were. This is a complex, evolving situation where the vaccine will play a critical part, but we are still learning about its effectiveness.
By the end of April, the Government aims to have administered a first dose of the vaccine to people in the 9 most at-risk groups, with estimated coverage of around 27 million people in England and 32 million people across the UK. These at-risk groups account for around 99 per cent of all deaths from COVID-19 to date.
Even when people in these groups have received their vaccination, they still need to follow the restrictions that are in place and the ‘Hands. Face. Space.’ measures along with everyone else. It’s up to all of us to make this national lockdown our last.
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