On Monday April 19, the United Kingdom reached the symbolic mark of 10 million Britons who have received their two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine – 33 million have also already received a first dose. However, “We will have to learn to live with the virus, because we do not know how far the protection of the population goes with vaccines. According to the consensus of scientists, we will not escape a third wave of infections later this year ”, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned at a press conference on Tuesday April 20.
Despite the very sharp drop in contamination in the country (they are at the lowest since the summer of 2020, with now less than 2,000 patients in hospital), there is no question for 10 Downing Street to accelerate an announced deconfinement schedule. from February and considered very cautious, too much for the right wing, very pro-business, of the conservative party. Schools reopened on March 8, with reinforced precautions: middle school students are invited to test themselves twice a week – rapid saliva tests are provided by schools (and teachers can now obtain the tests for free in schools. pharmacies).
Non-essential shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants (only on terraces) were able to reopen on April 12 in England, as well as certain stadiums, but with a capacity limited to 4,000 people, and partly for experimental purposes. This was the case with Wembley, the emblematic England team stadium in north-west London, which only hosted staff from the National Health Service (NHS, the British health service) on Sunday April 18, and residents of the district, for a meeting between the Leicester and Southampton teams. Fans were to show a negative test on entry and take a PCR test five days later, to check whether or not infection levels have increased as a result of the event. International travel is still prohibited until May 17 at the earliest, when theaters, cinemas and museums should finally be able to accommodate the public – most have been closed for over a year now.
Rapid progression of the Indian variant
The Johnson government, which has promised the third lockdown (started December 19, 2020) “Will be the last”, has been widely criticized for his muddled and off-beat management of the pandemic in 2020. He has clearly learned from his mistakes and now wants to take advantage of a successful vaccination campaign to make people forget his mistakes (and the more than 150,000 deaths linked to the coronavirus) and avoid other “stop and go” very damaging to the economy and the morale of the British.
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