Photograph: Ian West/PA
Here are some more lines from Gillian Keegan’s interviews this morning.
- Keegan, the social care minister, would not rule out the government imposing some form of “circuit breaker” lockdown in England after Christmas. The Sun today claims “New Year’s Eve looks doomed” because further restrictions are likely. Asked if there was any chance of avoiding a circuit-breaker lockdown, Keegan said:
We are waiting for data on the severity, we’ll still have to wait to see where we land on that, but we can’t really say, you know.
What we’ve said is up to Christmas we’re fine looking at the data, looking at the numbers we have at the moment, but, of course, we have to look at where this virus goes, where this variant goes, so we have to look at that data.
I can’t tell you in advance of getting that data, but you should be cheerful because we’re doing a lot more than we could last year. We’re able to see our families.
I’m looking forward to receiving it. But we haven’t received that officially yet.
There’s a lot of uncertainty in the data and that’s one of the things we’ve been wanting to hear more on.
- She said that hospital doctors and care staff would be able to take advantage of the new rule saying self-isolation only has to last seven days, not 10, for people who test negative on a lateral flow test. She said hospital doctors were subject to strict testing regimes anyway, and she said care staff would keep doing lateral flow tests. But the new regime would “relieve some of the pressure” caused by staff absences in this sector, she claimed.
Source: Guardian
