Boris Johnson gave his strongest hint yet that the planned 21 June lifting of lockdown will be delayed as he described the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant as a “serious, serious concern”.
Speaking to broadcasters at the G7 summit in Cornwall, Mr Johnson insisted that no final decision will be taken until Monday on the implementation of step 4 of his roadmap to recovery, which would see limits on attendances at weddings, football matches and arts performances lifted and nightclubs reopen.
But he admitted that he was less optimistic than he was just two weeks ago and added that “where it’s necessary to be cautious, we will be.”
He made clear that the swift rise in cases has sparked fears within government that a full reopening on the earliest possible date of 21 June would risk a rapid return to restrictions.
“It’s clear that the Indian variant is more transmissible and it’s also true that the cases are going up, and that the levels of hospitalisation are going up,” he told Sky News.
“Now, we don’t know exactly to what extent that is going to feed through into extra mortality, but clearly it’s a matter of serious, serious concern.”
Ministers have been considering a delay of up to four weeks in the final relaxation of lockdown, taking the date for the return to near-normality to 19 July.
There were hopes that weddings could be spared the delay, but it is understood that the PM will sanction only a limited increase in maximum numbers, amid worries that they could become “super-spreader events”.
Mr Johnson said that scientists do not believe there is “any case” to reverse previous relaxations of lockdown, such as the reopening of non-essential shops and indoor hospitality last month.
He added: “What we want to do is make sure that the roadmap is irreversible, but you can’t have an irreversible roadmap unless you’re prepared to be cautious.”
“Some of the data is still open to question, but we’ll be making an announcement on Monday.”
Asked if he could guarantee that there would be no delay in the rollback of lockdown, Mr Johnson replied: “Where it’s necessary to be cautious, we will be.”
The prime minister also appeared to accept that it may be better to allow more time for a larger proportion of the population to get fully vaccinated.
“We’re looking at all the data but what we’re wanting to do is avoid another wave of deaths that could be prevented by allowing the vaccines to work in the way that they are,” he told ITV News.
“The vaccine programme has been absolutely astonishing and there’s no question that if you look at the people going into hospital now they tend to be in different groups, younger groups, than we saw in the first couple of waves of the pandemic.
“But it may be that in the race between the vaccines and the virus, we need to make sure we give the vaccines extra legs.”
The British Medical Association became the latest body to call for a delay after the most recent data showed the R rate of reproduction of the virus at its highest since January – between 1.2 and 1.4.
Daily cases reached 8,125 on Friday, the highest number since February.
And figures published by Public Health England (PHE) showed that 42,323 cases of the Indian variant had been confirmed in the UK over a seven-day period, an increase of 240 per cent from the previous week. PHE estimates the strain is 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant first identified in Kent, with cases doubling every four and a half days in some areas.
