The Prime Minister said tonight that he favours a cautious approach to easing the lockdown rules currently in place in England.
Boris Johnson told the Downing Street press conference tonight (January 22) this approach is to prevent the nation from being shut back down again by a resurgence of coronavirus.
The 'stay-at-home' order is currently in place in England and Mr Johnson previously said that he hoped there could be a form of relaxation in February depending on the vaccine rollout.
The Prime Minister said this evening: “I think we will have to live with coronavirus in one way or another for a long while to come. I think it is an open question as to when and in what way we can start to relax any of the measures.
“Obviously, we want to do everything we can to open up but only safely, only cautiously.
“I also think that the British public and British business would much rather we opened safely and cautiously when it was right to do so rather than opening up again and then being forced to close back down simply because the virus takes off again.
“I think that is a far more sensible approach.
“The first thing that we want to be able to reopen if we can make any progress will, of course, be schools.”
The Prime Minister said the most important way of getting a grip on infection numbers was for the public to obey the lockdown rules.
Asked why tougher rules were not being brought in to combat the Kent Covid variant, he told a Downing Street press conference: “We are enforcing the law very stringently with increasing toughness.
“We will do it, we will enforce the law to ensure people don’t engage in activities which will mean mass transmission of the disease, or substantial transmission of the disease.
“But it depends on all of us, everybody watching, doing the right thing, avoiding transmission.
“That is far more powerful and far more effective against stopping the transmission of this virus than police action or new laws from the Government.”
