LONDON, May 30 (Reuters) - Two scientific advisers to the
British government have warned that COVID-19 is still spreading
too fast in the country to lift the lockdown, with one
describing it as a political decision.
England's lockdown will ease slightly on Monday, with groups
of up to six people allowed to meet outside and primary schools
re-opening to certain year groups.
The government has said it hopes that a "test and trace"
regime, where contacts of known cases are asked to self-isolate,
will contain the virus and help the country start to reopen.
But Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust and a
member of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
(SAGE), said he agreed with his colleague John Edmunds that
"COVID-19 is spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England."
"TTI (test, trace, isolate) has to be in place, fully
working, capable dealing any surge immediately, locally
responsive, rapid results & infection rates have to be lower.
And trusted," he said on Twitter.
John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine and a member of SAGE, said on Friday that "we are
taking some risk here" with an "untested" test and trace system,
describing it as a political decision.
"The government here in Westminster clearly made a decision
that this is the sort of level of incidence that they're willing
to tolerate, the level of incidence here in the UK is
significantly higher than similar countries around Europe," he
told the BBC.
"But we've obviously decided that we can tolerate that level
of incidence, or the government has."
More than 48,000 people have died with COVID-19 in the
United Kingdom, making it one of the worst hit countries in the
world. According to a survey by the Office of National
Statistics, there are an estimated 54,000 new COVID-19
infections per week in England.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)