England will need five days of lockdown for each day relaxed at Christmas – adviser

LONDON, Nov 18- England will need five extra days of lockdown measures to stop COVID-19 infections spreading for each day they are relaxed over the Christmas period to allow people to see their families, a senior government health adviser has warned. Susan Hopkins, deputy director of the national infections service at Public Health England, told reporters on…

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – England will need five extra days

of lockdown measures to stop COVID-19 infections spreading for

each day they are relaxed over the Christmas period to allow

people to see their families, a senior government health adviser

has warned.

Susan Hopkins, deputy director of the national infectionsservice at Public Health England, told reporters on Wednesdaythat the advice from the Scientific Advisory Group forEmergencies would mean two days of tighter restrictions.

However, Public Health England, the government agencyresponsible for responding to public health emergencies, laterclarified that Hopkins had misspoken, and that “for every oneday of relaxation, five days of tighter restrictions wouldpotentially be needed.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to ease lockdownrestrictions on Dec 2 after a month-long lockdown imposed tostop a second wave of infections threatening the health service.He said two weeks ago that he hoped that Christmas could be asnormal as possible.

The government is considering rules relaxing lockdown forbetween three and five days to allow family get-togethers, TheSun newspaper reported on Wednesday.

This would mean that Britain could face up to 25 days offurther restrictions for spending 5 days with family members orfriends outside their household over the festive period.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; editing by Stephen Addison)