Boris Johnson has tasked the government’s chief scientists with devising an “exit strategy” from the UK coronavirus lockdown — but ministers and experts have differing views on whether some restrictions should be lifted as soon as is feasibly possible or kept in place for months. Finding a workable balance is proving difficult, they warn.



The prime minister said in a Twitter video on Wednesday night that developing an antibody test to tell if people have previously had COVID-19 was key to getting people back to work, suggesting that this was Britain’s road back to normality.

A source familiar with the thinking of England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance told BuzzFeed News that they were considering various strategies for how to end the lockdown. “This is the biggest question people are asking, but there are no clear answers yet,” the source said.

The current restrictions — which ordered people to stay at home except for essential shopping, medical reasons, exercise, or work if they cannot work at home — are due to be reviewed in two weeks. At that point, Johnson and government experts will decide if the measures are relaxed or extended. Deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries has said that social distancing measures will have to be “adjusted” over a period of at least six months.

There are opposing views in government over how and when the UK can “adjust” those lockdown measures, ministers told BuzzFeed News, based on differing economic and health considerations. “There is a sliding scale of options, each with positives and negatives,” a Whitehall source said.

One group of ministers and senior advisers is keen to release restrictions on the largest number of people as soon as is practically possible.

Senior figures across government are increasingly concerned about the economic impact of keeping widespread restrictions in place for months on end, fearing that more than three months of full-scale lockdown will plunge the UK economy into a depression from which it could take a decade to recover.

Ministers have been warned by Treasury officials that while they hope the economy makes a V-shape bounce back to where it was before the pandemic, ongoing restrictions on economic activity could result in an L-shape recession from which it is extremely difficult to recover.

Until as recently as last week, some at the top of government had hoped that the UK outbreak would have reached its peak by mid-April, after which many measures could quickly begin to be lifted. However, this timescale is now considered out of date and overly optimistic.