Johnson returns to Downing Street as UK looks for answers on ending lockdown
Boris Johnson has resumed his duties as British Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street after recovering from coronavirus. He returns to explain it is too dangerous to lift lockdown measures that have crippled the country’s economy.
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Speaking outside No 10 Downing Street on Monday, Boris Johnson urged Britons "to contain" their "impatience" because it is too soon to ease down lockdown measures.
"We cannot risk losing control of that virus... because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster," he said.
The United Kingdom has been under lockdown for five weeks, since 23 March, leaving the economy facing its worst recession in three centuries, experts say.
For Johnson, Covid-19 is "the biggest single challenge this country has faced since the war".
EY Item Club forecasting group predicts it will need three years to recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson said that lifting the lockdown too soon will cause lasting damage to the economy.
The UK is among the five worst hit countries with 20,732 Covid-19 related deaths as of Monday 27 April. But health specialists say that the country's total death toll is much higher as statistics for deaths outside hospital, for example in care homes, are slower to be published.
Johnson returned to Downing Street on Sunday night while his government is facing pressure over its handling of the epidemic.
The opposition Labour party said the government had been too slow to impose the lockdown, to expand testing and to get personal protective equipment to hospital and care home staff.
Lifting lockdown
Johnson said that the government will ease up on the lockdown when it is confident there will be no second peak;
Opposition parties are asking for more transparency on Downing Street’s exit strategy. Labour party leader Keir Starmer sent a letter to the prime minister asking for details.
The PM is to explain how schools and businesses can reopen and how it will manage quarantine restrictions for all arrivals at UK airports.
Johnson added that his government will show “maximum transparency” about decisions taken over relaxing restrictions and will bring in opposition parties “as far as we possibly can”.
“I want to share all our working.. with you the British people," he said.
"We will also be reaching out to build the biggest possible consensus, across business, across industry, across all parts of our United Kingdom, across party lines”.
On Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab – who had been deputising during the PM’s absence – said the lockdown restrictions would "be with us for some time" and were the "new normal".
Raab also said that it was inconceivable that children could return to school without further measures to check the spread of the virus.
Jonson will also have to deal with a political row over the role played by his chief adviser Dominic Cummings after it emerged he attended meetings of a supposedly independent scientific group advising ministers on the coronavirus.
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