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Prime Minister hints at ‘tougher’ restrictions to come

BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show

Boris Johnson kicked off the new year with an appearance on The Andrew Marr show in which he warned of tough weeks ahead for the country. With Covid cases on the rise and concerns among the scientific community that the current restrictions will not be enough to contain spread of the virus, the Prime Minister said that restrictions are ‘alas probably about to get tougher’.

Johnson told Marr that the government was ‘entirely reconciled to doing what it takes to get the virus down and that may involve tougher measures in the weeks ahead’ – even if that meant doing things in the next few weeks that ‘will be tougher in many parts of the country’. However, for now at least, that does not mean new school closures. Despite teaching unions launching legal action over the government’s current plans to open many primary schools (they will stay closed in some of the worst-hit areas by coronavirus), Johnson said parents should send their children to primary school come Monday so long as the school was open. 

Pointing to lateral flow tests as a way of keeping track of infections in schools, he said there was ‘no doubt in my mind that schools are safe’. While Johnson would not rule out more closures, it was clear from his comments on the ‘huge’ benefit of education compared with the low risk of Covid to children that this is the area where he is most reluctant to bring in restrictions.

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