UK to delay end of restrictions by one month due to advance of Delta variant of coronavirus

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preparing to postpone the lifting of the last restrictions against the coronavirus in England on the advice of its scientific advisers, concerned about the outbreak of the Delta variant, the press reported on Monday.

The main ministers of the British government on Sunday signed the decision to postpone the measure and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to confirm it this afternoon at a press conference, after attending the NATO summit in Brussels. The last step includes the reopening of nightclubs and authorization to operate concert halls at full capacity, and was scheduled for June 21.

According to BBC, the uprising will be delayed for four weeks, until July 19, a decision that would be submitted to Parliament for approval.

A delay would enrage a large section of Johnson’s Tory MPs and It would be a huge setback for many companies, especially in the hospitality industry., which expected a full reopening at the start of the summer to make up for the losses suffered by successive blockades in England since March 2020.

But the prime minister warned on Saturday that the spread in the UK of the Delta variant, initially identified in India, is “of great concern”.

A 60% more contagious Unlike the Alpha variant detected in England in December, this strain is now dominant in the United Kingdom, the country most affected in Europe by the pandemic with around 128,000 deaths.

After a long winter confinement, the government very gradually relaxed the restrictions. But the lifting of the latest measures, scheduled for next week, is threatened by the recent upsurge in infections, which exceed 7,000 new cases daily.

Delaying the last step, prolonging, among other things, the task of teleworking, would allow more Britons to get vaccinated to protect them from severe symptoms, hospitalization and death, since most people hospitalized for covid had not been vaccinated or some had only received the first of two doses of the preparation.

More than 41.5 million people, or nearly 79% of the adult population, have already received the first dose of a covid-19 vaccine and 29.8 million people, 56.6% adults, both necessary doses.

Although the rest of the UK – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have relaxed restrictions, they will still maintain various types of measures to reduce the possibility of infections.

The Night Industries Association warned on Monday that a delay in lifting the measures would be “catastrophic” for sectors such as nightclubs, closed since March of last year, and indicated that this sector had invested millions of dollars. books in the preparations for this June 21. Currently, the guest limit for weddings and other events is 30 people.

According to media reports, Johnson will ask the public to be patient in making this latest effort to ensure that once the restrictions are lifted they will be “irreversible.”

(With information from AFP and EFE)

KEEP READING: