The United Kingdom has extended lockdown restrictions for “at least” another three weeks.
The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the extension was necessary to fight the coronavirus pandemic to a standstill.
Raab told the daily No 10 briefing that to terminate the lockdown or relax the measures would risk harming public health and the economy.
“We still don’t have the infection rate down as far as we need to,” he said.
The foreign secretary, who deputises Prime Minister Boris Johnson who is recovering from COVID-19, further declared:
“There is light at the end of the tunnel but we are now at both a delicate and a dangerous stage in this pandemic.
“If we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made.
“That would risk a quick return to another lockdown with all the threat to life that a second peak to the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second lockdown would carry.”
The extension came on another terrible day when the UK recorded another 861 coronavirus deaths in hospital, raising the total to 13,729.
The lockdown which imposed strict limits on daily life was imposed by the government on March 23 in its efforts to curtail the spread of the disease. The limits require people to stay at home, shutting many businesses and preventing gatherings of more than two people.
