Covid: Boris Johnson 'optimistic' about summer holiday prospects

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is "optimistic" people will be able to have summer holidays this year but "some things have got to go right".

He did not want to give "concrete" dates for such trips but said he would set out more details "about the way ahead" on 22 February.

The success of the vaccine rollout and level of Covid cases would be factors taken into consideration, he added.

Nearly nine million people in the UK have had the first dose of a vaccine.

The government is aiming to offer all care home residents and carers, people over 70 and frontline care workers a vaccination by mid-February.

On Saturday, a record 598,389 first jabs were given across the UK.

Latest figures show a further 21,088 coronavirus cases were recorded on Sunday.

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Mr Johnson, speaking during a visit to Batley, West Yorkshire, said: "I don't want to give too much concrete by way of dates for our summer holidays. I am optimistic - I understand the reasons for being optimistic - but some things have got to go right.

"The vaccine programme has got to continue to be successful.

"We have got to make sure we don't get thrown off course by new variants, we have got to make sure that we continue to keep the disease under control and the level of infections come down."

He added that once he gave more details in the last week of February "people should certainly be able to plan on that basis".

His comments come after Health Secretary Matt Hancock predicted "a happy and free Great British summer".

Dr Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease expert who advises the government, said that if the UK continued the current pace of vaccinations - and jabs are shown to prevent transmission, not just severe infection - measures could begin to be eased in March.

"We need to be very careful," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme . "Hopefully by the summer we can get back to something pretty close to what we have seen before the pandemic as normal."

Vaccines would need to be "pretty good" at blocking transmission "to avoid a resurgence" of the virus when measures are eased, Dr Tildesley added, with research due on this over the next month.

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February 02, 2021 at 01:36AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55890224