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The coronavirus lockdown has officially been extended as Boris Johnson prepares to announce Britain’s “new normal” on Sunday.
Speaking at the Downing Street briefing, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said social distancing measures will remain in place this bank holiday weekend.
It comes as the prime minister prepares to make an address to the nation on Sunday in which he is expected to lift some – but not all – restrictions on Brits’ freedoms.
Raab said Brits must “keep going” and “stick to the plan”, adding: “There is no change in the rules today.”
He added” “For the moment it is really important, particularly as people look towards a warm bank holiday weekend, that we continue to follow the guidance in place at this time.”
Saying the PM would set out a “roadmap” with “milestones” for the next phase of rules, Raab said changes would be “modest, small, incremental and very carefully monitored”.
“To get this right, we have set milestones,” Raab said. “Some changes can confidently be introduced more quickly than others and some of those other ones will take longer to introduce.”
The foreign secretary also warned “the point at which we make even the smallest of changes” to the rules “will be a point of maximum risk” as the disease could easily begin to spread again.
The virus’s reproduction rate – the “R” – must be kept below one, experts have repeatedly said.
It comes after the foreign secretary said the UK was “past the peak” of the Covid-19 outbreak, but as power-holders bid to avoid a second spike in cases in the months ahead.
“We have come through the peak, but it’s a very delicate and, I have said before, a very dangerous moment, so we do need to proceed with caution,” Raab said.
“If we find in the future the R level goes back up or that people aren’t following the rules, we must have the ability then to put back measures in place.”
Raab also admitted there were “significant” problems with the spread of the virus in care homes.
PPE, social distancing, movement into facilities and testing were all issues ministers were examining, he said.
“We’ve definitely got a challenge in care homes,” he said. “The CQC [Care Quality Commission] data that came out, I think, yesterday showed that overall in care homes the number of deaths was down by over 300 on the last week, so that’s positive, but there’s still a very significant issue in care homes.”
On Thursday, the number of people who died across the UK after contracting coronavirus rose by 539 in 24 hours, bringing the working total to 30,615.