UK needs to know lockdown is working before next steps discussed - government adviser

Reuters
·1 min read
The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in London

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs to know how well its current lockdown measures are working in tackling the coronavirus outbreak before it can discuss what happens next, the government's deputy chief scientific adviser Angela McLean said on Monday.

The current lockdown measures are due to be reviewed in one week's time.

"We need to know how well the current restrictions are working before we can say anything sensible about what the next stage might be," McLean, who is also Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defence, said at a news conference when asked about the government's lockdown exit strategy.

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said the government needed to be confident the country had reached the peak of the outbreak before discussing the next steps and it did not know for certain that would be at the end of this week.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle, Costas Pitas and Elizabeth Howcroft, Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Alistair Smout)