Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has said that the UK’s coronavirus lockdown measures are likely to be extended beyond the current three weeks
The UK is currently in its third week of the nation’s coronavirus lockdown, measures are likely to be extended beyond that, one cabinet minister has said, as senior politicians prepare to hold a meeting to review the restrictions.
The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has now spent a third night in intensive care following persistent symptoms from COVID-19 on Wednesday, with a Downing Street spokesperson saying he has “continued to make steady progress”.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has been deputising for the Prime Minister, chairing an emergency Cobra committee on Thursday afternoon discussing the current lockdown measures with the leaders of other nations affected by the coronavirus.
No final decision on changs to the current lockdown precautions is expected to be announced at the meeting in the absence of Boris Johnson, with an announcement instead planned for next week.
Raab will continue to lead the government’s daily coronavirus press briefings on Thursday evening, at which he is predicted to prepare the public for an extension of the lockdown measures put in place on the 23rd of March.
938 people have died in the past 24 hours in the UK, which is notably higher than that of Italy’s worst daily death rate of 919 fatalities, which is the country with the highest amount of deaths in the world. Medical experts do not expect the peak to come for more than a week.
Looking forward to the Easter weekend, when temperatures are set to reach 25C in some parts of the UK, Culture secretary Oliver Dowden, has urged the public to continue to follow the lockdown rules.
“I don’t think it’s very likely these measures are going to be changed given they’re just starting to have an effect but, as we said, we would review them,” he told BBC News on Thursday morning.
“It’s only prudent that on an ongoing basis we review them after three weeks.”
Wales has already announced an extension of lockdown measures, with Vaughan Gething, the country’s health minister, saying that there was “virtually zero prospect” of experts advising that UK-wide measures could be reduced at this stage of the measures.
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