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
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave good news to the country on Monday, after months of blockade, saying that an “incomparable” vaccination program meant he was “now traveling on a one-way road to the Liberty”.
The easing of the blockade for England will come in several stages and will depend on data at all stages, he said. The first stage will be the reopening of schools in England on 8 March. The last, scheduled for June 21, foresees the abolition of all mixing limits and the reopening of all sectors that remain closed, such as nightclubs.
The United Kingdom is 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 accounted for more than 4.1 million cases of coronavirus and has seen 120,810 deaths as a result of the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
He saw a sharp increase in cases in early winter, when a new, more infectious strain of the virus emerged 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 several countries around the world, along with other more virulent strains of the virus.
A positive aspect of the UK’s experience with the pandemic was its response to vaccination. It was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine, a candidate for Pfizer and BioNTech.
It then approved and started administering the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine, a cheaper vaccine produced in the UK and easier to transport and store than rival vaccines. On Saturday, more than 17.5 million Britons received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, with more than 600,000 having received both doses, according to government data.
New infections falling
The data shows that new infections are falling, with early studies indicating that coronavirus vaccines also help prevent the transmission of the virus, as well as prevent serious illnesses.
In the past seven days, the UK saw 77,432 new cases of coronavirus, a 16.2% drop from the previous weekly count. The number of deaths in the last seven days, 3,414 deaths, is also 27.4% lower than the count of the previous seven days. Hospitalizations are also falling.
This is breaking news and will be updated shortly.
—Holly Ellyatt of CNBC contributed to this article.