British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a televised press conference at 10 Downing Street, on February 22, 2021, in London, England.
Leon Neal | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, had some good news for the country on Monday, after months of blockade, saying that an “unparalleled” vaccination program means that “he is now traveling on a unique path to freedom”.
The release of the blockade for England will come in several steps and will be dependent on data at every stage, he said. The first step will see the reopening of schools in England on March 8. The latter, scheduled for June 21, will see the removal of all mixing limits and the reopening of any sectors that remain closed, such as nightclubs.
Johnson appears to have confirmed that more than 17.7 million Britons had received their first dose of coronavirus vaccine.
“Almost a year since the beginning of this pandemic, this unparalleled national effort has decisively changed the chances in our favor,” Johnson told a news conference Monday night. “We no longer have to simply rely on blockages.”
He added: “With each passing day, this vaccination program creates a shield around the entire population, which means that we are now traveling on a unique path to freedom and can safely begin to restart our lives and do so with confidence. “
The United Kingdom was one of the countries most affected by the pandemic, with the fourth highest number of infections after the United States, India and Brazil. To date, it has counted over 4.1 million cases of coronavirus and recorded 120,810 deaths from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
There has been a sharp increase in cases heading into winter, with the emergence of a new, more infectious strain of the virus in the south-east of the country. It has now become the dominant strain of the virus across the country and has been detected in many countries around the world, along with other more virulent strains of the virus.
A silver lining in the British pandemic experience was his response to vaccination. It was the first country in the world to approve a vaccine against coronavirus, the candidate from Pfizer and BioNTech.
He then approved and began administering AstraZeneca-University of Oxford, a cheaper vaccine produced in the UK that is easier to transport and store than rival jabs.
New infections that fall
Data show that new infections are declining, with early studies indicating that coronavirus vaccines also help prevent the transmission of the virus as well as prevent serious disease.
In the last seven days, the United Kingdom has registered 77,432 new cases of coronavirus, down 16.2% from the previous weekly number. The number of deaths in the last seven days, 3,414 deaths, is also 27.4% lower than the previous seven days. Hospitalizations are also declining.
This is breaking news and will be updated soon.
—ColBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.