LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will this week set out his plans to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in the winter months, announcing a decision to scrap the introduction of vaccine passports and steps to end some emergency powers.
Johnson, under fire from some in his governing Conservative Party for raising taxes to fix a health and social care crisis, looks set to try to soothe those critics by ditching plans to introduce passports despite an increasing number of coronavirus cases.
Speaking to broadcasters, Health Minister Sajid Javid said he did not anticipate more lockdowns and that the vaccine passports would not be introduced in England, as the government depends instead on vaccines and testing to defend the public. “Now that we’re entering autumn and winter … the prime minister this week will be setting out our plans to manage COVID over the coming few months and in that we will be making it clear that our vaccine program is working,” Sajid Javid told Sky News.
He told the BBC he was not “anticipating any more lockdowns” but would not take the measure off the table, that the government would not go ahead with vaccine passports to allow people to attend mass events and he wanted to “get rid of” PCR tests for travelers as soon as possible.
Javid added the government would remain “cautious,” but “the vaccine program, our testing program, our surveillance program, the new treatments … this is all our wall of defense and whilst there’s a lot of virus around, it is working.”
The government was handed sweeping emergency powers in March 2020 with the introduction of the Coronavirus Act, which included measures to allow the authorities to bar protests, shut down businesses and restrict travel. The main opposition Labour Party said it agreed it was a “reasonable” approach to take some measures off the statute book but that lawmakers would study the detail of the proposals. “Obviously we will want to study the detail when it comes to parliament, because there have been huge concerns about the way in which the Coronavirus Act has been misused by the authorities,” Labour’s health policy chief Jonathan Ashworth said. Nick Note: Its gotten political….. Politicians know how to steal money, fuck whores and fuck things up. We are seeing them try to convince us they are scientists. All they are doing is avoiding the hard decisions and making things worse. A great example is the FACT England now has its highest record breaking Covid19 death rate. And the politicians are opening things up even further… Same in the US with opening up the schools . Every school hose in America is a super spreader event in the making. The SCIENTIFIC evidence proves mask or no masks the kiddies and their teachers are getting infected and sickkkkkkkk… What the fuck are we doing?