Health Secretary Matt Hancock Speaks to G&T on Lifting Restrictions and More

Health Secretary Matt Hanock has told Times Radio the route of the current lockdown, due to be announced tomorrow, will be "cautious but irreversible.":

Speaking to Gloria De Piero and Tom Newton Dunn he said the Prime Minister will:

...set out a roadmap that gives the direction and we've been clear it will be cautious yet irreversible. The goal is we take each step in turn and we don't have to go back. Obviously in doing that we'll follow the data. We'll look very carefully, all the way through, at the impact of what we're all collectively doing to make sure we keep each other safe and keep the number of deaths down.

But he stressed the public shouldn't expect a rapid lifting of all restrictions:

If you lift a measure and there's more social contact it takes typically about a week for people to become symptomatic. It then takes another couple of weeks to be able to see the effect of that because it's not just one person passing to another, it's if that chain continues. So it is a few weeks, hence there will be a few weeks between the steps so that we can watch carefully.

Mr Hancock also said he's working to get the NHS waiting list, for people waiting for more than 12 months for an operation or treatment, down to zero.

Before the pandemic we were on track to get it to zero which is where I'd like to see it. The number of people waiting over 12 months has gone up inevitably as a consequence of the pandemic. We've been putting more money into the NHS to make sure they can not just deal with the pandemic but also deal with this backlog. Obviously a lot of that had to be paused during this second peak and it's critical that the staff in the NHS get some R&R as well because they've had a really tough winter so far. There's still almost twenty-thousand people in hospital with covid but then we are going to have to absolutely get through this backlog.

And on the whether the UK should follow Australia and Canada by requiring Facebook to pay for the news content it hosts:

Well that is a very, very good question and as a former Culture Secretary, I'll stress the word former and not step on my successor's toes.

TND: But you have views on this?

MH: I do. I have very strong views on this. All I can say is that I'm a great admirer of Australia and Canada...I think this is a very important matter and I've got no doubt the culture secretary will be looking at it very closely.