Boris Johnson poured cold water on the possibility of easing the remaining coronavirus rules early as he declined to rule out future lockdowns and warned the country should brace for a rough winter.
The Prime Minister has suspended freedom day by four weeks to July 19 but a two-week review will take place on July 5 to see if the return to normal can be pushed forward.
Boris Johnson struck a negative tone during a visit to a laboratory in Hertfordshire as he said Delta variant cases, hospitalisations and admission to intensive care were still climbing and the country must therefore be wary.
But he maintained that it was looking great for the rules to be lifted at the terminus point of July 19, as he said the vaccination rollout was going gangbusters.
Nevertheless, Boris Johnson refused to rule out reimposing draconian restraints later in the year as he warned some new horror could surface which they simply hadn’t planned for.
The Prime Minister’s intervention came after Matt Hancock confirmed Israeli-style proposals to scrap travel quarantine rules for fully vaccinated Britons that could shortly come into force, reinforcing hopes that summer holidays abroad could still be saved.
The Health Secretary said ministers were working on loosening restrictions for double jabbed adults and their children, which could see the prevailing compulsory 10-day self-isolation from amber to red list countries succeeded with daily COVID tests.
But he said Number 10 couldn’t push forward with the plan for 31.3 million Britons just yet because they’re waiting for experts to investigate data from a pilot project to see if it will be effective.
Matt Hancock announced that he believes progress will be made shortly, with sources saying widespread family holidays abroad may be back on from August.
The Health Secretary told BBC Breakfast that they weren’t ready to be able to take that step yet, but it’s something that he wanted to see and that they will introduce, subject to clinical information, as soon as it’s reasonable to do so.
Tory MPs, hospitality chiefs and travel bosses are all hopeful that the Prime Minister will expedite the nation’s departure from lockdown, but Boris Johnson seemed to infer that was questionable as he painted a sombre panorama of the scope of the Delta variant.
Questioned on whether he would bring forward freedom day, he said that the vaccination rollout was going gangbusters and loads of people were coming forth now for their second jabs.
However, easing restrictions means people will leave the country, and it seems that the government’s strategy is to prevent the British people from spending money elsewhere, but if that is true, that might be an advantage to the United Kingdom, only time will tell, but I fear that the good old days of normalcy are gone.
Hopefully, Boris Johnson will regain his sanity when it’s pointed out that a winter lockdown will slaughter what’s left of this country. Surely, there’s no way he could contemplate financing another lockdown.
Furthermore, I wonder if there’s any chance of the Prime Minister spending a day in Downing Street, actually running the country, instead of swanning around playing dress-up? But perhaps that’s because he’s a showman and not a leader, and if people can’t see through him, then we’re doomed.
We can go to a football match where there are thousands of other people, but you can’t sing and dance at a wedding – so no real restrictions there. I’d rather live in a land that was governed by logic and reason rather than experience repeated gaslighting from our government.
