The government does not expect to make any changes to lockdown rules when social distancing guidelines are reviewed this week, the foreign secretary has said.
Dominic Raab, who is leading the government in the prime minister's absence, addressed the lockdown review at today's daily coronavirus press briefing.
He said while the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) would be meeting this week to discuss evidence around how effective social distancing has been, the government did not expect to implement changes.
He told the briefing: “We don’t expect to make any changes to the measures currently in place at that point and we won’t until we’re confident, as confident as we realistically can be, that any such changes can be safely made."
"If we let up now the virus will only take full advantage," he explained. "It will spread faster and it will kill more people.
"Our plan is working. Please stick with it and we will get through this crisis together."
Mr Raab said there were 'positive signs' from the latest data that the UK was 'starting to win the struggle'.
But he explained that evidence suggests the country is 'still going through the peak' and that there was 'a long way to go' before restrictions would be eased.
When pressed about why there seems to be little discussion around an 'exit plan', Mr Raab said it was 'still too early'.
He said: “We are doing a lot of work in government to be guided by the science and the medical advice that you get and I think that, until you have got that evidence, we will be getting ahead of ourselves.”
He said the government was "determined to keep our eye on the ball and the focus on what will save lives".
“There will come a time in the future where we can talk about relaxation or transition but we are not there now,” he added.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said he expects the death toll continue to increase this week before it starts to plateau.
“I think this week we are going to see a further increase, thereafter we should see a plateau as the effects of social-distancing come through," he said.
He said the plateau could last 'for some time' before numbers start to decrease.
The government said lockdown measures, which were introduced on March 23, would be in place for an initial three weeks before they were reviewed.
