Loosening of lockdown must be done “very carefully”, warns British expert

London, February 1 (IANS): The lifting of coronavirus lockdown measures should be done “very slowly, very carefully” to avoid a resurgence of infections, a British medical expert has warned.

Susan Hopkins, chief of Covid strategy at Public Health England, said lessons had to be learned from the past, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

“We have learned, like we did the first time around, that we have to release things very slowly, so that if the cases start to increase we can fight back pretty quickly,” she told the BBC .

Hopkins noted that the British National Health Service (NHS) would remain under enormous pressure at least until the end of March, as usual in winter, but even more with the number of hospital patients with Covid-19 .

“Any releases that we have will have to happen very slowly, very carefully, watching and waiting as we go, with a two week period to watch and see the impact of this easing, because it takes time to see. what’s going on in the population, ”she said.

23,275 more people in Britain have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 3,796,088, according to official figures released on Saturday.

The country has also reported 1,200 other coronavirus-related deaths. Britain’s total coronavirus-related deaths now stand at 105,571, the data shows. These figures only include deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

Meanwhile, Britain is stepping up efforts to speed up vaccine rollout to bring the pandemic under control. The country aims to deliver a first dose to 15 million most vulnerable people by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by the fall.

England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

To get life back to normal, countries like Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have fought against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.