Covid-19: Businesses could be forced to stay shut after 21 June in local lockdown scenario
The business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng couldn’t rule out a return to local lockdowns that would force businesses to stay shut beyond 21 June if Covid variants let off a surge in coronavirus infections.
When Kwasi Kwarteng was asked on Sky News whether there could be a return to some sort of local lockdown, the business secretary said ministers were considering “all options”.
He said: “I repeat what I’ve said before, we’re looking at the data. We want to reopen on the 21st of June, and we’re trying to get to that outcome.
“But if the data says suggests that it would be unsafe to do that, we may well follow that, we would follow that.”
A total of 6,959 cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus have now been confirmed in the UK, Public Health England said. The figures are up to 26 May, and represent a rise of 3,535 on the previous week.
The Government said a further 10 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of yesterday, bringing the UK total to 127,758.
In London, Kelly O’Neill, the director of public health at Hounslow Council, this morning insisted that the possibility of a localised lockdown is still “a long way away”, despite an upsurge in cases in the area.
O’Neill said the council had been managing outbreaks by taking a case-by-case approach and persuading people who test positive to self-isolate.
She told BBC Breakfast: “I think that any suggestion of lockdown is is a long way away, it will damage us economically and socially, and actually it would end up with us losing confidence with our communities, and we’re nowhere near that.”
Hounslow, which is adjacent to Heathrow airport, has rolled out surge testing and increased its Covid-19 vaccination programme after becoming a hotspot for the Indian variant.
At a nationwide level, some experts on Friday argued that restrictions should remain in place until more of the population have received both vaccine doses, with Professor Christina Pagel, from University College London and a member of Independent Sage, saying reopening should be delayed for a few more months.
But the chief executive of industry body UK Hospitality, Kate Nicholls, said it was “absolutely critical” that the remainder of the hospitality sector is allowed to unlock on 21 June.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on Thursday he “didn’t see anything currently in the data” to divert from the June reopening target, adding: “But we may need to wait.”