LONDON – British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday that the country still has a “long way” to go before Covid-19 cases are low enough to lift the lockdown, Anadolu Agency reported.
Government data yesterday showed that there are another 30,004 infections and 610 deaths, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 3,647,463 cases and 97,939 fatalities.
Over 6.3 million people have now received a dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Hancock made his comments in an interview with Sky News, saying: “We should be worried enough, all of us, about this pandemic to follow the rules, and it is just so important that people do.”
He added that they “don’t know the degree” to which new variants from South Africa and Brazil “might have a lower response to the vaccine”.
“The new variant I really worry about is the one out there that hasn’t been spotted,” Hancock said.
He told the BBC in a later interview that the government has identified 77 cases of the South African variant in the UK.
“That’s why we have such stringent border measures in place against movement from South Africa,” he told the BBC. – Bernama, January 25, 2021
