Had Prime Minister Gaze made the speech last night it would have been very short and to the point. Highlights below:
Nothing is changing. Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives. We will review again in 3 weeks time.
The reasons for this are that scaling up contact tracing and antibody testing are both taking longer than we expected. However, progress is being made on both fronts. In addition we will be implementing a national randomised antigen testing programme to establish the current rate of infection.
The number of infections is falling but it is not yet at a manageable level. Therefore, to crush this virus to a level we can control the same rules must continue to apply. The economic cost is huge but it will be even higher if we ease now and have to slam on the brakes again in a few weeks or months.
Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze