Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said that the UK had now gone past its coronavirus peak vowed that next week he would set out a plan on how the country might start gradually returning to normal life.
Johnson tried to give optimism to tired Britons in his first news conference after emerging from a severe COVID-19 infection while telling them to adhere to lock-down controls that are destroying livelihoods and the economy.
Johnson said in a statement:
“I can confirm today that for the first time, we are past the peak of this disease. We’re past the peak and we’re on the downward slope, and we have so many reasons to be hopeful for the long term,”
Britain has 26,771 confirmed coronavirus deaths as of the time of writing, the second second-highest official COVID-19 death toll in Europe.
The high death toll has put pressure on the government about its initial outbreak response and said that its cautious approach towards lifting restrictions is in an attempt at preventing a second spike of infections.
Johnson defended his handling of the outbreak and said that the death rate could have been a lot higher, saying:
“It’s thanks to that massive collective effort to shield the NHS (National Health Service) that we avoided an uncontrollable and catastrophic epidemic, where the reasonable worst case scenario was 500,000 deaths,”
“It is vital that we do not now lose control and run slap into a second, an even bigger mountain.”
Under pressure to draw up a lockdown escape plan, Johnson vowed next week to put up a ‘menu of options’ on how to relax restrictions but said scientific advice would affect the precise timing of the change.
Johnson said that face masks would play a big part in returning to normal life, even though inadequate data has been provided to call for the public to continue to use them.
The Panthera Post 