Boris Johnson has said another lockdown looks “extremely unlikely” in the wake of the Omicron variant.
However, the Prime Minister said the Government hadn’t ruled anything out amid the ongoing pandemic.
He told a Downing Street press conference: “We haven’t ruled out anything, I’ve got to tell you. I think another lockdown of the kind that we’ve had before is extremely unlikely, I’ll be upfront with you about that. But we keep everything under constant review.
“In our fight against the Delta variant, we think it has basically been going our way or going the way that we planned, so though cases remain high or high-ish, you are seeing a decline in the number of admissions to hospital and a decline in the number of deaths, and that’s the crucial thing that we’ve been following.
“So, at the moment, we’ve seen no cause to move to Plan B but, as I’ve said to you many times before, we’ve got to keep that under review. But the measures we are talking about to deal with Omicron are, as I’ve said, distinct.”
He spoke after announcing a huge expansion of the booster programme.
Meanwhile, mandatory face coverings in shops and on public transport, and self-isolation rules, returned on Tuesday as part of a suite of measures reduce the spread of the variant.
