Boris Johnson: UK will not need another national coronavirus lockdown
Boris Johnson has said the UK will not need another nationwide coronavirus lockdown, likening the measure to a “nuclear deterrent”.
The Prime Minister said today that does not want another complete lockdown, adding “nor do I think we will be in that position again”.
Johnson announced on Friday that local authorities would be given powers to implement “lightning lockdowns” when Covid-19 cases spike in a particular region.
Johnson is confident these interventions will be enough to save the entire country from going into full lockdown again and said on Friday that the UK could be back to normal by Christmas.
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Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson said: “I mean, look, I can’t abandon that tool any more than I would abandon a nuclear deterrent. But it is like a nuclear deterrent, I certainly don’t want to use it.
“It’s not just that we’re getting much better at spotting the disease and isolating it locally, but we understand far more which groups it affects, how it works, how it’s transmitted, so the possibility of different types of segmentation, of enhanced shielding for particular groups, is now there.”
Johnson’s words are in stark contrast to those of chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, who this week said: “Come winter, the challenges will be very much greater and there is a risk that this could also need national measures as well.”
Johnson also laid out a number of other potential policy positions in the interview, including that the government was looking at potentially reducing university tuition for some courses, that new sugar taxes were very unlikely and that the government was looking at potentially removing rights to legal aid for terror suspects.