‘It can’t just be about the vaccine’ Dr Amir slams reliance on jab to save UK from Covid

June 21st delay 'must have multifaceted approach' says Dr Amir

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Boris Johnson confirmed a four-week delay to the lifting of all restrictions in England beyond June 21 during a press conference on Monday. The new date for lifting the restrictions has now been set at July 19. The delay is designed to allow more people to be vaccinated and have second doses amid rising cases of the Delta Covid variant.

But appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, Dr Amir Khan exclaimed more needs to be done over the next four weeks.

“It is disappointing that for a lot of people that ‘freedom day’, the restrictions, have been delayed for another four weeks,” he began.

“It does give the NHS time to vaccinate around nine million more people offering both jabs to two thirds of the adult population, and that’s what it’s all about really.”

But he continued: “I think it’s important to say that actually over this four week period where we try get a better understanding of this Delta variant and understand the risk it poses to people, that it can’t just be about the vaccines.

“The approach has to be multi-faceted.

“The government need to look at where this virus is being spread.

“Looking at the data, that looks to be younger age groups, particularly school-aged children as well. What’s being done in schools to mitigate that.

“We’re, in the NHS, we’re vaccinating, I was vaccinated yesterday, we’re doing our bit, but they need to look at other things.”

Among Dr Amir’s other suggestions were scrapping the traffic light system and better ventilation in work spaces.

He said: “Scrapping the traffic light system for travel…the amber list just poses a real problem. We saw that in the initial stages with the Delta variant coming in from India, before India went on the red list.

“We need better ventilation in work spaces, in schools social distancing.

“There’s lots of other things as well as vaccinating that need to take place over the four week period.”

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