COVID-19: UK extends Coronavirus lockdown for three more weeks

The UK government has announced that the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the Coronavirus will remain in place for three more weeks.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab made the announcement this night during daily No 10 briefing saying that after a review they concluded that relaxing the measures now would risk harming public health and the economy.

Relaxing the lockdown measures now would “risk a second peak in the virus … [and] undo the progress we’ve made to date,” inflicting further damage to the economy, Raab told reporters.

“The worst thing we can do now is to ease up too soon … so the current restrictions will remain in place,” he said.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel but we are now at both a delicate and a dangerous stage in this pandemic.

“If we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made.

“That would risk a quick return to another lockdown with all the threat to life that a second peak to the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second lockdown would carry.”

Mr. Raab, deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovers from his Coronavirus infection added that the review concluded that the measures were working, but there was evidence the infection was spreading in hospitals and care homes.