LONDON (UK) – Britain will do everything it can to avoid declaring a second national COVID-19 lockdown, as it believes it will cause more harm than good to the country, a minister said on Thursday.
Coronavirus cases are surging in every region of Britain, which suffered the worst death toll in Europe.
Housing minister Robert Jenrick said the British government’s clear policy was to implement the tough local restrictions, recently imposed on swathes of northern England.
He told Times Radio, “The judgement of the government today is that a blanket national lockdown is not appropriate, would do more harm than good.”
“Although it does have some advantages, it also brings with it great harm to people’s lives and livelihoods, real damage to the economy … and a lot of harm to broader health and wellbeing.”
Jenrick said the government’s approach to tackling the virus is being reviewed.
An Imperial College study published on Thursday showed cases becoming double every nine days, with nearly 100,000 people infected in England each day.
The main concern now, he said, was to prevent hospitals from getting filled up with COVID-19 cases, as it led to a rise in unrelated deaths. British data showed there were 9,520 patients in hospital with COVID, the highest level since May 14.
Nabarro told the BBC, “That’s where I think that the big risk lies now.”
