CURB your enthusiasm: Boris Johnson returned to duty after recovering from Covid-19 with a warning to the nation that ending lockdown too early would risk a second peak in the virus’ spread.
Speaking from outside 10 Downing Street shortly after 9am on Monday, April 27, he pledged to be open and transparent with the public over its plans to enter phase two.
“Keep going in the way you have kept going so far,” he said, urging the nation to protect the NHS by enduring the six weeks of lockdown.
Mr Johnson opened his speech by thanking “the people of this country for the sheer grit and guts you have shown and are continuing to show”.
“Every day, I know that this virus brings new sadness and mourning to households across the land. It is still true that this is the biggest single challenge this country has faced since (the Second World) War,” he continued.
“I, in no way, minimise the continuing problems we face, yet it is also true that we are making progress with fewer hospital admissions, fewer Covid patients in ICU and real signs that we are now passing through the peak.
“Thanks to your forbearance, your good sense, your altruism, your spirit of community, thanks to our collective national resolve, we are on the brink of achieving that first clear mission – to prevent our national health service from being overwhelmed in a way that tragically we have seen elsewhere.”
Mr Johnson said that this was helping to “turn the tide” against the virus’ spread across the nation.
He warned: “It is the moment of maximum risk because I know that there will be many people looking now at our apparent success and beginning to wonder whether now is the time to go easy on those social distancing measures.”
These included “ancient and basic freedoms” of not being able to see friends and family, having to work from home and home school.
And while he sympathised with businesses for their “impatience” and “anxiety” to ease lockdown restrictions, saying that he shared their urgency, “we must also recognise the risk of a second spike … because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster and we would be forced once again to slam on the brakes across the whole country and the whole economy and reimpose restrictions in such a way as to do more and lasting damage.”
There was a warning too that during the process of firing up the engines of the vast UK economy, there would be difficult judgments to make.
“We simply cannot spell out now how fast or slow or even when those changes will be made though clearly the government will be saying much more about this in the coming day and I want to serve notice now that these decisions will be taken with the maximum possible transparency and I want to share all our working and our thinking, my thinking, with you the British people,” he said.
“I can tell you now that preparations are underway and have been for weeks to allow us to win phase two of this fight as I believe we are now on track to prevail in phase one.”
Mr Johnson concluded his speech by saying “If we can show the same spirit of unity and determination as we have all shown in the past six weeks then I have absolutely no doubt that we will beat it together, we will come through this all the faster and the United Kingdom will emerge stronger than ever before”.
