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Business News/ News / World/  Too early to say when UK lockdown will end: Johnson, Covid infections up by 50%

Too early to say when UK lockdown will end: Johnson, Covid infections up by 50%

British interior minister Priti Patel said The advice is very clear we are in a lockdown, the public should be staying at home. Study shows, infections increased by 50% from early December 2020, with 1 in 63 people infected.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday said it is too early to say when the nationwide Covid lockdown in England will end as the rate of infections is not going down despite strong measures.

Johnson told broadcasters, "I think it's too early to say when we'll be able to lift some of some of the restrictions."

"What we're seeing in the ONS data, in the REACT survey, we're seeing the contagiousness of the new variant that we saw arrive just before Christmas. There's no doubt it does spread very fast indeed."

Echoing similar views, interior minister Priti Patel said on Thursday, it is too early for Britons to start anticipating the end of lockdown and booking summer holidays. She added, warning that the COVID-19 pandemic was still putting pressure on health services.

"It is far too early ... to speculate around restrictions, such as the point you just made: should people be booking a holiday," Patel told a news conference.

She also said: The advice is very clear we are in a lockdown, the public should be staying at home.

Infections up by 50% since December

A large number of people remain infected with the coronavirus in England and the rate of new infections was not dropping even 10 days into the latest stay-at-home lockdown.

The Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) study into the country's COVID-19 infections, show that infections increased by 50% from early December 2020, with 1 in 63 people infected.

Based on swab tests on over 142,900 volunteers in the community between January 6 and 15, the study has also picked up early signs that infections may have begun to rise at the national level.

The analysis, however, does not fully reflect the impact of the latest tough lockdown which came into force from January 5.

Oxford working on vaccine versions

Scientists at Oxford University are preparing to produce new versions of their vaccine to fight more contagious variants of the Covid 19 discover in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, The Telegraph report said on Wednesday.

The report suggested: The university has confirmed that the team behind the AstraZeneca jab is undertaking feasibility studies to reconfigure the technology at 48 hours notice. However, AstraZeneca deferred to Oxford for comment.

The scientists were working on estimating how quickly they could reconfigure their ChAdOx vaccine platform, the report said.

"The team do not currently think they will need to, but it would be stupid not to be prepared," the source told The Telegraph. "It should take a day or two to tweak the system."

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