The Health Secretary has revealed the four key areas which will be reviewed by the Government before the lockdown is lifted.

Speaking during yesterday's press conference at Downing Street, Matt Hancock said the UK's death rate, number of hospital admissions, variants of Covid-19 and the success of the vaccine programme will all be considered before rules are eased.

Mr Hancock refused to be drawn on when the lockdown could be lifted, despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson hinting it could be as early as mid-February. 

Mr Hancock said: "The pressure on the NHS remains huge and we’ve got to get that case rate down. Of course I understand the yearning people have to get out of this.

“The thing is that we have to look at the facts on the ground and we have to monitor those facts.

“And of course, everybody wants to have a timeline for that, but I think most people understand why it is difficult to put a timeline on it because it’s a matter of monitoring the data, and in fact this is a state-contingent and not a time-contingent question.”

There are currently 37,899 people in hospital with coronavirus, while 4,076 of those patients on ventilators - the highest number since the pandemic began. 

An estimated 6.6 million people have meanwhile had their first Covid jab in the UK, which equates to one in nine adults. 

Despite the number of new daily infections now dropping below 30,000, Dr Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, has warned figures need to be kept “in proportion”

She added: “We are not out of this by a very long way.”

Speaking in response to a question over when lockdown might be lifted, she said there were three “large” areas that clinical care was “juggling” with.

The first was the rates of infections, particularly among those aged 60 and above.

“We know those are the ones who still are likely to require hospitalisation and intensive care use,” she said.

Dr Harries said the second area was needing to be “patient” about the “understanding” of the implementation of the vaccine programme.

She said the third area was the winter pressures on the NHS.“Alongside all of this, our health service has to deal with the increased rate of clinical admissions due to winter and cold weather,” Dr Harries said.

“So it is not simply a matter of Covid, it is actually a balancing of all of these indicators, alongside the main Covid ones, to ensure that our health services can continue to treat us all.”

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