Covid surge undermines plans to get UK economy back on track
Loading player...
London — Two of Boris Johnson’s senior ministers laid bare the competing pressures facing the British government as it attempts to drag the economy out of its worst recession in at least a century without triggering a new wave of coronavirus infections.
Hours after foreign secretary Dominic Raab on Sunday reiterated the government’s push to “get people back to work” and lamented the damage done by locking down the economy, health secretary Matt Hancock warned that a recent spike in coronavirus cases among young people could “lead to the sort of problems that we saw earlier in the year”.
The surge could undermine the government’s push to encourage people to return to their workplaces after schools reopened across England last week. But it is also a sign of how the next couple of months threaten to play out for Johnson’s administration, amid warnings from medical officials about a possible resurgence of Covid-19. On Monday, environment secretary George Eustice said the government wanted to avoid a second national lockdown “at all costs” but would not rule one out.
“What we’ve developed since the original lockdown is much more targeted local lockdowns,” Eustice told Sky News. “The idea of going into a total national lockdown again is something we don’t want to do. The impacts on our economy are significant.”
The UK reported 2,988 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, a 64% jump on the previous day’s and the highest level since May 22. That was despite the number of new cases typically dipping at weekends when reporting is more limited. The average was about 1,600 new cases a day in the past week.
“The cases are predominantly among younger people, but we have seen in other countries across the world and in Europe this sort of rise in the cases among younger people lead to a rise across the population as a whole,” Hancock said.
Resistance
Johnson has said that any measures to kick-start the economy must be “Covid-secure,” so the sudden increase is likely to trigger further pushback from labour unions and workers on pressure to return to the workplace.
But a report by accountancy firm PwC published on Sunday showed the annual economic cost to the UK of people working remotely could be £15.3bn due to lower spending from workers who are at home and the knock-on effect on those who rely on them for business.
A no-deal Brexit could ...
Hours after foreign secretary Dominic Raab on Sunday reiterated the government’s push to “get people back to work” and lamented the damage done by locking down the economy, health secretary Matt Hancock warned that a recent spike in coronavirus cases among young people could “lead to the sort of problems that we saw earlier in the year”.
The surge could undermine the government’s push to encourage people to return to their workplaces after schools reopened across England last week. But it is also a sign of how the next couple of months threaten to play out for Johnson’s administration, amid warnings from medical officials about a possible resurgence of Covid-19. On Monday, environment secretary George Eustice said the government wanted to avoid a second national lockdown “at all costs” but would not rule one out.
“What we’ve developed since the original lockdown is much more targeted local lockdowns,” Eustice told Sky News. “The idea of going into a total national lockdown again is something we don’t want to do. The impacts on our economy are significant.”
The UK reported 2,988 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, a 64% jump on the previous day’s and the highest level since May 22. That was despite the number of new cases typically dipping at weekends when reporting is more limited. The average was about 1,600 new cases a day in the past week.
“The cases are predominantly among younger people, but we have seen in other countries across the world and in Europe this sort of rise in the cases among younger people lead to a rise across the population as a whole,” Hancock said.
Resistance
Johnson has said that any measures to kick-start the economy must be “Covid-secure,” so the sudden increase is likely to trigger further pushback from labour unions and workers on pressure to return to the workplace.
But a report by accountancy firm PwC published on Sunday showed the annual economic cost to the UK of people working remotely could be £15.3bn due to lower spending from workers who are at home and the knock-on effect on those who rely on them for business.
A no-deal Brexit could ...