Boris Johnson has declined an invitation to assure parents their kids would be back at school before the summer holidays.
Speaking at a Downing Street briefing today (Tuesday), the Prime Minister would only say that he believed 'things really will be very different by the spring' after trumpeting a huge roll-out of coronavirus vaccines which has seen 1.3m people across the UK get the first of their two jabs.
Schools and colleges across England were closed today after the prime minister announced last night in a TV broadcast details of the latest national lockdown.
He vowed to have school back open again following the February half term.
But at his latest Downing Street press briefing, flanked by chief medical officer Sir Chris Witty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, the PM was asked if he could assure parents all kids would be back in school before the summer holidays.
Mr Johnson said: "We think that with the vaccination programme we can do a huge amount to take out of the path of the virus those who are most vulnerable.
"That clearly offers opportunities to our country to do things differently, to approach the whole issue of non-pharmaceutical interventions very differently.
"So I'm full of the same optimism and fundamental hope about the position that I think Chris (Witty) has adopted and I think that things really will be very different by the spring.
"And that is what I would certainly say to every parent in the land."
Earlier, the briefing heard the PM say the government had 'no choice' but to instate the full lockdown because of an alarming spike in coronavirus cases, with one million people now infected in England.
He confirmed that more than 650,000 of the over 80s, almost a quarter of that age group, had had their first dose of a vaccine which were now being delivered from almost 1,000 sites from hospitals to GP practices across the country.
Sports stadiums and exhibition centres would also be adapted to start to deliver the vaccines, he said.
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