Boris Johnson has addressed the nation this evening as the country is just hours away from further relaxation of the lockdown.
The lockdown has had a “devastating” effect on our economy he said pointing to the many industries that cannot reopen, saying taskforces are working “rapidly and closely” with those sectors and indicated that a timetable will be set out for those sectors next week.
We have continued to make progress”,said the Prime Minister “We are reporting regularly fewer than 1,000 cases each day.”
Sage assess that the R rate remains between 0.7 and 0.9 across the UK. In England, the number of new infections is shrinking by 2%-5% every day.
Johnson said that we need to move away from “blanket” national measures and create a more focused approach.
“Instead of closing down non-essential retail and hospitality nationwide, we will only shut establishments locally as required.”
“Instead of shutting all schools, from September we will only shut those schools where it is absolutely necessary to control an outbreak.”
“Instead of quarantining arrivals from the whole world we will only quarantine arrivals from those countries where the virus is sadly not yet under control.”
Supporting local businesses should be a focus as lockdown measures ease tomorrow he added.The economic health of the whole country depends on every single one of us acting responsibly,we must not let them down.
He continued:
Reopening will only succeed if everyone works together as we are not out of the woods, as Leicester has shown.This government won’t hesitate in reimposing restrictions if needed.Anyone who flouts the rules is putting us all at risk but also letting down business owners who have prepared for this new normal.
