U.K. Plans Gradual Lockdown Exit as Virus Death Rate Falls

(Bloomberg) -- Britons are being urged to stick with the lockdown that has helped slow deaths from coronavirus, as the government plans safe ways to reboot the battered U.K. economy and gradually ease restrictions.

The government won’t alter social-distancing measures until it is clear that doing so won’t trigger a second wave of infections, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters. Scientific advisers are considering options for how to ease the rules, though ministers remain focused on the May 7 deadline for a formal lockdown review, he said.

“We aren’t prepared to risk a second peak,” Slack said in a conference call on Tuesday. “An exponential growth in the virus would be bad for both the country’s health and the economy.”

Scientists are drawing up options for lifting limits on movement, while Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is mulling how to gradually unwind support for businesses. The focus on an exit strategy comes as the U.K. moves through the peak of the outbreak, with doctors reporting 360 hospital deaths from the disease on Monday, the lowest daily number in about a month.

Amid renewed calls for restrictions to be lifted, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Tuesday it is still too soon to end the lockdown safely. Moving too early will risk a second spike in infections that the government says would cause many more deaths and “economic disaster.”

“The worst thing for the economy would be for it to continue rattling away,” Hancock said as he answered questions from the public on LBC Radio on Tuesday. “We do have to get the level of new cases right down and then we can hold it down through testing, tracking and tracing. It is a catastrophe and we’re trying to manage it as best we possibly can.”

Johnson’s administration is under pressure over its handling of the outbreak, and Hancock accepted that there would be a “review” after the outbreak is over to learn lessons of how the U.K. response could have been better. He said it had not been “perfect.”

The prime minister, who was hospitalized with the virus, returned to work Monday to find mounting public weariness with restrictions that have closed shops, pubs and restaurants and prevented people meeting friends and relatives. There are growing calls for a path to restarting the economy from business owners and members of Johnson’s own Conservative Party.

Patience

In a televised address outside his Downing Street office Monday, Johnson pointed to signs of success, including falling hospital admissions, but said it is important to remain cautious. Maintaining restrictions would hasten the opportunity to lift the curbs and “fire up the engines” of the U.K. economy, he said.

“I want to get this economy moving as fast as I can, but I refuse to throw away all the effort and the sacrifice of the British people and to risk a second major outbreak and huge loss of life,” he said.

Slack said the government’s five tests for lifting the lockdown -- maintaining capacity in the NHS, a sustained and consistent fall in the death rate, decreasing infection rates to manageable levels, adequate testing and supplies of protective equipment, and no risk of a second peak -- haven’t been met.

Work is ongoing to set out where the U.K. stands in the various criteria, Slack said, and the government may give more details this week. “We’re not at the point of wanting to change the social-distancing measures which we have in place,” he said.

‘Gradual’ Changes

Ministers are planning “gradual refinements” to the lockdown and the Treasury will take the same approach to removing economic support measures, Sunak told the House of Commons on Monday. A quarter of businesses have stopped trading and the Treasury is currently protecting four million jobs as part of a furlough program under which the government pays 80% of employees wages, he said.

“We must think carefully about exiting these schemes to provide maximum support to the labor market and businesses, and to ensure that we do not inadvertently distort things and hamper our recovery by stopping people going to work and businesses re-employing them,” Sunak said. “These are already tough times and there will be more to come.”

The Financial Times reported that one option being considered is for support for wages to be reduced to 60% and then 40% as help for companies under the program, which is scheduled to end June 30, is gradually withdrawn. Government officials said the report was based on speculation and no decisions have yet been taken.

On Monday, England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said the government’s scientific advisers are drawing up a menu of options for ministers to choose from. They could include reopening schools, in combination with other actions, he suggested, though preventing the infection rate from rising rapidly again would involve some “very difficult choices.”

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