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U.K. Advisers Warn Lockdown Easing Is Too Soon: Sky News

U.K. Advisers Warn Lockdown Easing Is Too Soon, Sky News Reports

(Bloomberg) -- Britain is easing restrictions on people’s movements too soon as infections continue to rise, according to two of the government’s scientific advisers, Sky News reported.

An “untested” system to test and trace the spread of the virus exacerbated the risk of wider contagion, John Edmunds and Jeremy Farrar of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies were quoted as saying.

England is expected to see between 40 and 80 ongoing deaths a day even without a second wave, based on present numbers, Edmunds said, while Farrar noted that a newly introduced National Health Service test and trace system needed to be “fully working” before measures were eased.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson further relaxed curbs on movement this week even as the Office for National Statistics calculated that an additional 54,000 new coronavirus cases were emerging each week. The U.K. has recorded 272,607 people with coronavirus, of whom 38,243 have died, according to data collated by John Hopkins University.

Read: Coronavirus Tracker: Global Cases 5.96 Million; Deaths 364,836

Meanwhile, the U.K.’s plan to open its airports came under fire with border-force and police officials saying the country’s system to quarantine incoming travellers is ‘unenforceable,’ according to the Daily Mail. Johnson was already preparing to water down the plan, or even axe it completely, the newspaper said, citing unnamed government sources.

Countries around the world are struggling to relax the lockdown and open businesses to ease the impact on their economies.

Johnson’s senior Conservative colleagues have urged him to relax the two-meter social-distancing rule within a fortnight to prevent large-scale redundancies, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

In a letter, Greg Clark, the chairman of the Commons science committee, has asked the prime minister to “urgently review” the rule and consider reducing it to 1.5 meters in light of newly available evidence.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.