UK’s Acting Prime Minister Dominic Raab has ordered Britons to stay at home for at least another three weeks to prevent the spread of a coronavirus outbreak which has already claimed over 138,000 lives globally.
“We have just come too far, we’ve lost too many loved ones, we’ve already sacrificed far too much to ease up now, especially when we are beginning to see the evidence that our efforts are starting to pay off,” Raab told reporters.
Raab is deputising while Prime Minister Boris Johnson recuperates from Covid-19 complications that nearly cost him his life.
Raab chaired an emergency meeting on Thursday to review scientific evidence on the impact of the existing lockdown “Based on this advice, the government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks,” he said.
“Relaxing any of the measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and the economy.”
The United Kingdom has the fifth-highest official death toll from Covid-19 in the world, after the United States, Italy, Spain and France, though British figures only cover hospital fatalities and the real number is probably much higher.
The UK has 103,093 cases and 13,729 people have died.
The announcement, which had been widely expected, means Britons must stay at home unless they are shopping for basic necessities, or meeting medical needs. Citizens are allowed to exercise in public once a day, and can travel to work if they are unable to work from home.
The measures were announced on March 23 for an initial three-week period. Medical advisers speaking alongside Raab said they had reduced the overall rate of transmission of the virus to below 1, meaning it was now shrinking in the community.
Earlier, Health minister Matt Hancock warned the virus would “run rampant” if restrictions were lifted too soon.
Raab set out five loose conditions which must be met for the lockdown to be lifted.
But he refused to discuss any possible timeline – despite a growing political clamour for an ‘exit strategy’ to the most severe restrictions on daily life in British peacetime history.
Opposition Labour Party leader Kier Starmer said he supported the extended restrictions, but added: “We also need clarity about what plans are being put in place to lift the lockdown when the time is right.”
A YouGov poll conducted before Thursday’s announcement showed 91 percent of Britons supported a three-week extension to the lockdown.
The number of people hospitalised for the novel coronavirus and related deaths in New York fell to their lowest levels in more than a week, adding to evidence that the hardest-hit state was controlling its spread, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
Cuomo also extended an order closing businesses and schools by two weeks until at least 15 May in coordination with other states in the region, and added details to mask requirements, saying New Yorkers should wear them on buses, taxis and trains.
Cuomo, who has emerged as a leading national voice on the pandemic, said the improvement in key metrics reflecting social distancing efforts which had brought the state’s infection rate low enough to control the outbreak.
The governor said that a total of 17,735 people were hospitalised across New York because of Covid-19, down from 18,335 a day earlier and the lowest since 6 April.
A total of 606 people died from the virus on Wednesday, also the lowest in more than a week.
BBC/Reuters
