Boris Johnson announces four-week delay of England’s next reopening phase

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a slowing of England’s economic reopening schedule as health officials blame the delta variant of the coronavirus for an uptick in cases.

Instead of moving forward with the initial June 21 reopening date, Jonhson said the next phase of the government’s reopening would be pushed to July 19. He estimated that by that date, two-thirds of the population will be fully vaccinated.

Cases in the U.K. have been trending upward since late May, with the seven-day rolling average of new cases standing at nearly 7,000 on Sunday, up from 4,695 a week before, according to Our World in Data. Johnson insisted during a Monday press briefing it is “sensible to wait just a little longer” before moving forward.

BRITAIN FULL REOPENING IMPERILED BY NEW WAVE

“We have faced a very difficult choice. We can simply keep going with all of Step 4 on 21 June even though there is a real possibility that the virus will outrun the vaccines and that thousands more deaths would ensue that could otherwise have been avoided. Or… ” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “We can give our [National Health Service] a few more crucial weeks to get those remaining jabs into the arms of those who need them. And since today I cannot say that we have met all four tests for proceeding with Step 4, I do think it is sensible to wait just a little longer.”

British Health Minister Matt Hancock recently estimated that the delta variant, first discovered in India, is likely “around 40% more transmissible” than the U.K. variant that emerged previously.

With Step 4 of the reopening plan, the government sought to remove “all legal limits on social contact.”

Although June 21 won’t bring an end to all limits, it will bring some changes, including the rescission of a restriction limiting the number of guests to 30. Venues will still be required to accommodate guests using social distancing.

The government is also loosening restrictions on overnight trips for children, lifting the current limit from six people to 30, and on care home residents who leave home for an outside visit. Those guests will no longer need to isolate for 14 days upon return beginning June 21.

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“Now is the time to ease off the accelerator because by being cautious, now we have the chance in the next four weeks to save many thousands of lives by vaccinating millions more people,” Johnson said Monday. “Once the adults have been overwhelmingly vaccinated, which is what we can achieve in a short space of time, we will be in a far stronger position to keep hospitalizations down, to live with this disease & to complete our cautious but irreversible road map to freedom.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, has shown concern about the delta variant’s potential to become a dominant strain in the United States but has also expressed confidence that vaccinations can protect people from the strain.

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Tags: News, United Kingdom, Britain, Boris Johnson, Coronavirus, Vaccination

Original Author: Jeremy Beaman

Original Location: Boris Johnson announces four-week delay of England’s next reopening phase