Speaking at this afternoon’s Downing Street’s coronavirus briefing, Home Secretary Dominic Raab, extending the lockdown for a further three weeks, gave a little more detail on when the UK government will consider relaxing the current social distancing measures.
“The government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks” he said.
Adding “The worst thing that we could do now is ease up too soon – and allow a second peak of the virus to hit the NHS and to hit the British people.”
Mr Raab then laid out the five factors the government “must be satisfied of” before considering any changes to the lockdown:
- Confidence that the NHS can still provide sufficient critical care and specialist treatment across the UK.
- Need to see a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rate to be confident we are beyond the peak.
- Reliable data from SAGE that the infection rate has decreased to manageable levels.
- Testing capacity and PPE is in hand to meet supply for future demand.
- Not risk a second peak of infection that overwhelms the NHS.
The extension takes the lockdown to at least 7 May.
This means people should continue to stay indoors, only leaving the house for one hour of exercise per day, to shop for essential supplies like food, for medical assistance, or to go to work if doing so from home is not possible.
