Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock
LONDON: Britain could return to pre-lockdown normal by next summer if a vaccine succeeds and is rolled out in the early part of 2021, health minister Matt Hancock said.
“For the mass rollout we’re talking about the first bit of next year, if all goes well … There’s still a chance of it coming on stream before Christmas, but we’ve then got to roll it out, and the first people who get it, are the people who are most vulnerable people,” Hancock said during an interview on ITV.
Asked when there would be a return to the old normal, Hancock said: “If … one of the vaccines comes off, in the early bit of next year, we are looking, I hope, by next summer.”
In the interview, the health minister added that Britain needed to control COVID-19 now in order for Christmas to be “as normal as possible”.
“The more we can control the virus now and stop the spread now, the easier it’s going to be to have a Christmas that’s as close to normal as possible,” he said.
“I really hope we can get there. If this runs out of control now, we’ll have to take heavier measures in the future.”
The health minister said that changes will be brought in to COVID-19 safety rules affecting pubs.
Asked whether pubs would open at the weekend, Hancock said: “We’ll be absolutely clear about changes that we need to make in the very, very near future.
Asked if that meant no, he replied: “It’s not a no and it’s not a yes. We’ve been working on this all weekend, we haven’t taken the final decision about what we need to do in response to the surge that we’ve seen.”
Shares in Britain’s listed pubs and restaurant groups, including JD Wetherspoon, Mitchells & Butlers, Marston’s and Restaurant Group, fell between 9 and 18 per cent on the stock market.
The wider FTSE 100 bluechip index was down 3 per cent.
Pubs in parts of the country already under local lockdown restrictions have been forced to close at 2100 GMT and comments from Hancock that the virus is spreading in social circumstances stoked expectations that further restrictions would be imposed.
Vast swathes of the economy were forced to shut for three months earlier this year to halt the spread of COVID-19, with pubs, restaurants, cinemas and leisure centres all closing their doors.
Good weather in the summer has helped to drive a recovery, with many drinkers and diners sitting outside to meet friends. Many smaller hospitality owners have warned they may not survive if they have to shut again.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday pondered a second national lockdown as an accelerating COVID-19 outbreak threatened to destroy any shoots of economic recovery and send millions back into isolation.
The UK already has the biggest official COVID-19 death toll in Europe – and the fifth largest in the world – while it is borrowing record amounts in an attempt to pump emergency money through the damaged economy. — NNN-AGENCIES
