Covid briefing today live updates from Boris Johnson announcement
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Boris Johnson has admitted he could not guarantee there would be no further lockdowns although he stressed that “science is now unquestionably in the ascendancy over the disease”.
The Prime Minister told a Downing Street press conference: “I can’t give that guarantee, of course not, because we are battling with nature, with a disease that is capable of mutating and changing.
“I’m increasingly confident, I’m increasingly optimistic about the sheer extent of the possibilities that are opening up with vaccinations.
The British public have been praised for adapting to life in a pandemic, showing “heroic” levels of compliance with strict lockdown measures over the last few months.
Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which advises the Government, said that “covidiots” breaking rules and partying have very much been in the minority.
He said he has been struck by the “ongoing resilience” of the public and described stories of people’s everyday adherence to the rules as “moving” and “inspiring”.
A person walks past a Stay Home Save Lives sign on Commercial Road in Portsmouth (Andrew Matthews/PA)
A SCIENTIST advising the Government on coronavirus has called for tighter lockdown restrictions, describing the current rules as “the problem” amid rising infections and deaths. Professor Susan Michie, director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at UCL, said an “overwhelming” number of people were sticking to lockdown rules as she questioned how Government messaging was being targeted at the public. It comes after the Government launched a new advert that asks people to “look in the eyes” of frontline medical workers and Covid-19 patients and tells them to stay at home. “The advert, the Government messages and Priti Patel talking about fines is all on the basis that the main problem is that people aren’t adhering to the rules that exist,” Prof Michie told Times Radio.