The White House economic adviser said on he doesn’t think the prospect on another round of coronavirus relief is dead ‘at all’
The UK government does not want to return to a “blanket national lockdown,” the UK Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said Sunday, ahead of an expected announcement of new restrictions for England.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make a statement to parliament on Monday to announce new restrictions following a record-setting increase in coronavirus infections across the country.
Although Jenrick did not provide precise details of the new measures, several British media outlets have been briefed by the government over the last week on the possible introduction of a “three-tier” system of restrictions – with the worst-affected areas facing the tightest measures.
Jenrick, who also holds the Communities and Local Government portfolios, said the government will work very closely with local authorities.
The number of cases is rising across the whole of the UK but it is very concentrated at the moment in some places in the northeast, the northwest and some other cities like Nottingham [in the central England],” Jenrick said, defending the government’s regional approach to lockdowns.
“It is right that we try and pursue a localized approach and that’s what we’ve been doing, and that is the conversation I’ve been having with local mayors and council leaders over the course of this weekend,” he said.
Localized restrictions: Parts of northern England have are already subject to tighter restrictions than the rest of the country, including banning the mixing of households, limiting hospitality to table-service only and enforcing a 10 p.m. closure for entertainment and leisure venues.
Wide restrictions: All of England is already subject to a “rule of six,” meaning no more than six people from different households are allowed to mix.
New framework: He said “in addition to the simple national rules, we have a framework so that there is a degree of consistency in those local lockdowns.”
He added that the government is working closely with local leaders, and has asked them if there are any “particular measures that they think would be effective in their communities that we could support them on and help us to bear down the virus.”
Government to work closely with local authorities: Asked whether the government will hand over control of the widely criticized contact-tracing system, called track and trace, to local authorities, Jenrick said the government will work very closely with local authorities.
“So, in addition to the national infrastructure which is developing and increasing with every passing week, we’re also going to make use of local councils to do contact-tracing because there’s clear evidence that local councils are good at that as you’d expect,” he said.
