Britain Will Lead World in Learning to Live with COVID, Says Govt Minister
Britain may lead the world in learning to “deal with” the Chinese coronavirus, Education minister Nadhim Zahawi said on Sunday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly drafting plans to return to normality.
While Britain faced some of the most stringent lockdown restrictions in the Western World at the outset of the Wuhan virus pandemic, England has of late become one of the freest nations in Europe in terms of lockdowns. Appearing to shrug off early omicron-variant panic, government and healthcare leaders have signalled that there is room for optimism in terms of returning to normal.
In an interview with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Education minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic, and then deal with this however long it remains with us, whether that’s five, six, seven, 10 years.”
Strikingly, top officials at the National Health Service (NHS) have backed off their typically lockdown-happy stance, with the chief executive of NHS Provider, Chris Hopson seemingly validating Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to not impose more winter restrictions, saying that the health service’s “front line will hold”.
The director of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter told Times Radio that Mr Johnson “may have got away with” his “gamble” to hold off on additional lockdowns. – READ MORE
Responses