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The UK is taking a look at all options for tackling flare-ups of the coronavirus and can use regional information to focus on its response, Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick mentioned, following newspaper studies {that a} London-wide lockdown is being thought of if circumstances spike within the capital.
While Jenrick mentioned he wasn’t conscious of a plan to seal off London, which the Sunday Times newspaper reported is being thought of as a worst-case choice by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s interior circle of advisers, he mentioned restrictions launched within the northwest of England late Thursday present ministers will act the place and when it’s crucial.
“We don’t want to do anything that’s a blanket approach across the country; our strategy is to manage this in a localized way with targeted action,” Jenrick advised Times Radio. “We will restrict in certain areas — and that’s difficult for people who live there — but it provides greater freedom for the rest of the country, for businesses to reopen and people to get on with their daily lives.”
Ministers are in search of to steadiness the necessity to damp down flare-ups of the virus whereas rebooting the U.Okay. economic system, which is dealing with its worst recession in 300 years. Jenrick denied newspaper studies of plans to shut pubs and mentioned restrictions on the actions of everybody over the age of 50 is “not something being actively considered.”
The studies got here two days after Johnson postponed the deliberate easing of lockdown measures amid a surge in infections. The prime minister ditched proposals to reopen leisure services resembling bowling alleys, and canceled trials aimed toward getting sports activities followers again into stadiums.
Travel Curbs
Possible measures embody locking down the capital if an infection charges spike and tightening quarantine guidelines on these flying into the U.Okay., the Sunday Telegraph reported. There might be journey curbs out and in of the M25 freeway encircling Greater London and a ban on in a single day stays if there’s a surge in circumstances, in accordance with the Sunday Times.
Johnson’s workplace mentioned the studies have been “speculation.”
Less than a month in the past, Johnson mentioned the thought of a second nationwide lockdown was a software much like a “nuclear deterrent” — a way of final resort. The U.Okay. has suffered the best demise toll in Europe and the federal government has been accused of ready too lengthy to impose the lockdown in March, elevating the stakes for Johnson if he will get it improper once more.
“You’d expect the government to be considering the range of all the options,” Jenrick mentioned. “We’re taking a very localized approach following the data and I’m working, for example, with each of the directors of public health in the London boroughs who are monitoring the rate of transmission in their own areas very closely.”
“There is no plan, as far as I’m aware, to do anything broader in London,” he added.
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