WHO cautions against further lifting of lockdown in England
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England’s lockdown restrictions should not be eased further until the government’s contact tracing system is “robust and effective”, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said.
WHO’s regional European director Hans Kluge said the UK remains in a “very active phase of the pandemic” and should be cautious in lifting any restrictions.
“Contact tracing is key especially as the UK starts to relax the social and physical distancing measures,” he told The Guardian.
“There has to be a robust track-and-trace system in place of operation.”
In its first week of operation, the system had managed to identify nearly 32,000 people who came into close contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.
But one third of people who tested positive could not be reached by the system or refused to hand over their contacts.
Baroness Harding, the head of the test and trace programme, admitted it was not yet at the “gold standard” and would improve over the summer.
Mr Kluge said the tracking of nearly 32,000 contacts was encouraging, but that Downing Street would need to be convinced it could “aggressively” track infections if it were to reopen the economy.
His remarks came as ministers confirmed a review of the 2-metre distancing rule, with the government coming under pressure from business leaders, Tory backbenchers and rightwing media to further ease the lockdown. Boris Johnson said on Sunday that the falling numbers of coronavirus cases has given the government “more margin for manoeuvre” in easing the 2-metre physical distancing rule.
