No evidence to delay lifting England’s Covid curbs: PM

(File photo) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson stands by his comments that there is nothing in the data to suggest a deviation from England’s reopening on June 21, Downing Street has said, as scientists said the UK was facing a perilous moment. Yesterday, Business Minister Paul Scully also said there was “cautious optimism” that the date for the final lifting of restrictions could go ahead as planned. He told Times Radio the government did not want to have to roll back restrictions again. “One thing that we saw last year, before Christmas, was the stop-start nature just didn’t work for businesses and cost them more. So we’ve got to get it absolutely right. People’s jobs and livelihoods depend on it.” However, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, Prof Sir Mark Walport, said it was “not impossible” that the country was in the foothills of a new wave, as the Delta coronavirus variant, first identified in India, takes over, accounting for three-quarters of cases. “I hope not, but it’s not impossible,” Walport told BBC Breakfast. While the B.1.1.7 variant, or “UK variant”, was disappearing, the B.1.617.2 variant, or India variant, was taking over, he said. The World Health Organisation has renamed B.1.1.7 as the Alpha variant, and B.1.617.2 as the Delta variant. Walport said: “It is a quite perilous moment, but we’ve just got to keep our fingers crossed that the measures work.” He added: “It’s clear that the B.1.617.2 variant is taking over – it accounts for about 75% of those cases which have been typed – the numbers of infections are getting up, but we would expect that.” Asked about the prime minister’s view on the latest data, a No 10 spokesman said: “I was going to point to what the PM said on Thursday. The prime minister has said on a number of occasions that we haven’t seen anything in the data but we will continue to look at the data, we will continue to look at the latest scientific evidence as we move through June towards June 21.”| In north-west England, which contains a number of Covid hotspots, the seven-day average for new daily hospital admissions has risen to 23 patients, up from 13 two weeks previously. In other regions, admissions continued to fall or rose slightly. Last Thursday, Johnson said “I don’t see anything currently in the data” that would lead to any deviation from the current roadmap. A number of Conservative MPs opposed to further restrictions have fired warning shots at the suggestion the roadmap be delayed. The former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the prime minister must resist “an organised push by a group of scientists to stop June 21”.