‘UK govt should avoid setting dates for lifting lockdown’

London, Feb 6 : The UK government should avoid “setting dates” to lift the ongoing lockdown, the third of its kind since the onset of the pandemic, despite hopes that the coronavirus infection levels were falling due to vaccine rollout, an advisory scientist said.
Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Graham Medley, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said leaders should not be “driven by a calendar”, reports Xinhua news agency.
The pandemic could still go in two directions, up or down, and “it’s up to the government to decide which of those paths it takes”, Medley told the BBC.
The scientist suggested a strategy of “adaptive management so you actually change the control of the epidemic as it goes along rather than setting dates”.
“To actually make decisions dependent on the circumstances, rather than being driven by a calendar of wanting to do things,” the scientist added.
On Thursday, the UK’s Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi told lawmakers that almost nine in 10 over 80s and over 75s, and over half of people in their 70s, had been vaccinated in Britain.