LONDON (Reuters) – A national lockdown in England is not inevitable to contain an increase in COVID-19 cases, British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Friday, adding that a localised approach could work if everyone stuck to the rules for their area.
Asked whether a national lockdown was now inevitable, Raab said: “No, I don’t think that is right, but what we are guided by is the rate of the virus. We’ve seen some evidence since we started putting in place this tiered approach that the rate of increase has slowed.”
“When you’ve got this focused approach, we really need full compliance, full co-operation, and we really need to lean into this, and that is the way we avoid the more drastic measures that we don’t want to take because of the impact they would have on the economy,” Raab told BBC TV.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Paul Sandle. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)
