Calls for early lifting of coronavirus lockdown rejected

The Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has rejected calls for an early lifting on the coronavirus lockdown as the outbreak is at a “delicate and dangerous” stage.

Raab is coming under increased pressure to ease lockdown measures and said the government will proceed “cautiously” to prevent a second and more dangerous wave of the virus.

Raab told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, “We are at a delicate and dangerous stage.

“We need to make sure that the next steps are sure-footed, which is why we are proceeding very cautiously and we are sticking to the scientific advice with the social-distancing measures at this time, whilst doing all the homework to make sure that we are prepared in due course for the next phase.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on the government to set out an “exit strategy,” but this was dismissed.

Raab said, “Until we can be confident, based on the scientific advice, that we are making sure-footed steps going forward that protect life, but also preserve our way of life, frankly it is not responsible to start speculating about the individual measures.”

The national medical director of NHS England, Professor Stephen Powis warned, “It won’t take much for this virus to start increasing its transmission again and to spread more widely.”

He added, “It would be foolish and not right if we lost the benefits that we have gained over the last four weeks, which I know have been hard for everybody.

“So, it’s really important that despite the weather, we stay at home, we keep to the guidelines that we’ve been issued with.”