UK to Make Final Lockdown Easing Decision on June 14

British ministers will make a decision on June 14 about whether or not to go ahead with the final phase of its easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday.

“We’ll make a final decision for the step four, which is the biggest step on the roadmap, we’ll make that final decision on the 14th of June,” Hancock said.

The last of four stages of releasing lockdown restrictions has been already scheduled for June 21, but that date is in some doubt due to the spread of the Coronavirus variant identified in India.

"The whole pandemic is currently under control," Hancock told the BBC. "But the Indian variant, it does appear, transmits more easily from person to person and so we have to be careful."

Last Thursday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “anxious” about a rise in the UK of the coronavirus variant first detected in India.

“It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it,” Johnson stated.

“We want to make sure we take all the prudential, cautious steps now that we could take, so there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do," he added. "There is a range of things we could do, we are ruling nothing out.”