UK is already repeating fatal mistakes of last summer as Covid lockdown eases, scientist warns
THE UK is already repeating the mistakes it made last summer as the Covid-19 lockdown starts to ease up, one scientist has warned.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson last night confirmed during a Downing Street press conference that step two of the roadmap out of lockdown would go ahead as planned.
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This means that on April 12 gyms will reopen, as well as outdoors hospitality and non-essential shops can once again open their doors to customers.
It’s the next step to “normal” life resuming by July but one expert this morning warned that future lockdowns could be on the cards if we ease out of restrictions too soon.
Holidays abroad are still banned for Brits and Mr Johnson’s plans for vaccine passports have been slammed by MPs.
The government has said that such passports could play a role in both domestic and international travel going forward.
Professor Devi Shridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University today said easing up restrictions when it comes to travel might be a “mistake”.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain she said: “Why are we focused on holidays abroad? It feels like we are repeating the mistakes of last summer.
“We have just got schools back open, we are just getting pubs and hospitality back on their feet, let’s focus on a full domestic recovery.
“Getting back to some normal daily life within the country and then we can look at getting aviation going.
“I’m afraid it we accelerate too quickly then there could potentially be another lockdown, and no one wants another lockdown, we can’t do this again.”
Last summer Brits were able to go on holiday and travel to certain countries.
Throughout the summer months quarantine rules came into play for people returning from trips abroad, in order to make sure that if they had picked up an infection on holiday – they did not bring it home with them.
Mr Johnson has refused to confirm when foreign holidays will resume, but a traffic light system was revealed this week.
Different countries are set to be graded green, amber or red according to their vaccinations, infection rates, the prevalence of variants of concern, and their genomic sequencing capacity.
Mr Johnson insisted he is desperate to “get the country flying again” but said families should wait before booking a foreign getaway.
During the press conference last night he added: “We are hopeful we can get going from May 17, but I do not wish to underestimate the difficulty we are seeing in some destinations people might want to go to.
“We don’t want to see the virus being reimported from abroad.”
Prof Shridhar said one of the pain issues with people returning to the UK from their trips abroad is the amount of money they are given to self isolate.
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She added: “We have to remember that isolation is an act of goodwill, you isolate to not infect others, you are already infected yourself or you are potentially carrying the virus.
“We have to create incentives and the UK has one of the worst payment schemes if you are off because you are isolating.
“Finland offers you 100 per cent of your salary, Norway offers 80 per cent, other countries really compensate financially so people don’t feel like they have to make that trade off.”
In the UK if you are on a low income and you are asked to isolate by Test and Trace then you could receive up to £500.