UK hopes to consider lockdown easing in March

Britain's government hopes it could fulfill its target for rolling out COVID-19 vaccines and also consider easing lockdown restrictions by March, foreign minister Dominic Raab said in Sunday.

The country, which has Europe's highest COVID-19 death toll, has been under a national lockdown since Jan. 5, when schools were shut for most pupils, non-important businesses were shut to the general public, and people were ordered to work from home where possible.

"What you want to do can be escape this national lockdown as quickly as possible," Raab advised Sky News television. "By early spring, hopefully by March, we'll maintain a position to create those decisions. I think it's to declare we won't do everything in a single big bang. As we phase out the national lockdown, I think we'll wrap up phasing through a tiered approach." Prime Minister Boris Johnson offers established a target of vaccinating the elderly, including care home residents, the clinically vulnerable and frontline workers - or roughly a lot more than 13 million persons - by mid-February. If all moves smoothly, he has said that England can consider easing lockdown restrictions from that point. The Sunday Moments newspaper explained British ministers had reached a package to approve a three-point system that could cause some lockdown restrictions staying lifted as soon as early March.

 "For the very first time there will be no significant divisions between hawks and doves in the cabinet," a cabinet source informed the newspaper. "Everyone recognized that we have to lock down hard and everyone accepts that people need to start before many people are vaccinated." A spokesman in Johnson's office declined to touch upon the report.