UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson returned to work on Monday morning, after making full recovery from Coronavirus.
In his first public statement since he was admitted to St Thomas’s Hospital in London on April 5, Boris said the U.K. was beginning to “turn the tide” on the virus.
Speaking from outside Number 10 Downing Street, the prime minister praised the British public for the sacrifices they had made during the period of lockdown, but warned that this was the “moment of maximum risk.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been away from my desk for much longer than I would have liked. If this virus were a physical assailant, an unexpected and invisible mugger which I can tell you from personal experience it is — then this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor.”
The prime minister acknowledged the impact the nationwide lockdown has had on the U.K. economy and its citizens, but ruled plans to lift the restrictions now.
“I understand your impatience, I share your anxiety,” he said. “And yet we must also recognize the risk of a second spike, the risk of losing control of that virus and letting the reproduction rate go back over one. Because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster, and we would be forced once again to slam on the brakes across the whole country and the whole economy.”
“I refuse to throw away all the effort and the sacrifice of the British people and to risk a second major outbreak and huge loss of life.”
More than 154,000 people in the United Kingdom have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and at least 20,795 have died from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University.
