Winchester’s Member of Parliament was in the House of Commons as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care confirmed the Prime Minister’s earlier announcement, during a No.10 press conference, that step 4 of the roadmap would be delayed until 19th July.
Many MP’s shared their dismay and disappointment at this announcement, including Steve Brine who said; “Last week the Health Secretary told me and I quote; "Our goal is not a covid free world, the goal is to live with covid”, but I have to say he could have fooled me and many of our constituents.”
Steve further added; “The Prime Minister and my Right Honourable Friend, have been very clear today, July 19th is not a new 'not before date', it is an end to all of this. So, can the Health Secretary tell the country what his assessment is of risk and personal responsibility and whether he feels we remotely as a country have that right at this time.”
The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, responded saying; “Well I think that in a pandemic, the balance between risk and personal responsibility is different because you can affect somebody else in a life threatening manner even without knowing it. And if we go to the philosophy of this, the first duty, in fact the legitimate duty of the state for any liberal is to prevent harm of individuals to others and unfortunately in a pandemic that's what you do if you have the disease, especially asymptomatically. You can be harming others without even knowing.
Now once you have the offer of a vaccine to everybody and once you have protected and mitigated the large part of that risk, then we do need to move back to a world based on personal responsibility, that is right, that is where we intend to go.”
The Government did announce, to the comfort of many, that weddings would still have the 30 person outdoor limit removed, however many restrictions will still remain.
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