Lockdown exit: Boris urged to ease restrictions as Covid deaths continue to sharply fall Oliver Trapnell Replay Video UP NEXT The original model suggested that deaths would not fall below 200 deaths a day until mid-March, yet that point was reached on February 25. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has promised that the easing of lockdown restrictions will be guided by "data, not dates." The most recent modelling projections by Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (SPI-M) were crucial in the production of Boris Johnson's roadmap out of the pandemic. Mark Woolhouse, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told The Telegraph: "If the phrase 'data-driven not date-driven' has any meaning, then it must allow for the schedule for relaxing restrictions to be brought forward if the data are better than expected and not just putting the schedule back if the data are worse than expected.