Coronavirus news – live: PM ‘anxious’ about Indian Covid variant as Tory MP urges no return to lockdown

Medical staff attend to Covid-19 patients at a hospital on 6 May, 2021 in New Delhi

(Getty Images)

Boris Johnson today admitted he was “anxious” about the spread of the B1.617.2 variant but that England is still on course to be free from lockdown rules on June 21.

Speaking at a primary school in Ferryhill, County Durham, the prime minister said there were meetings planned on how to deal with the variant on Thursday and that he was “ruling nothing out.”

He added: “At the moment I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we’ll be able to go ahead on Monday and June 21 everywhere.”

It comes as Tory MP Steve Baker has this evening warned against any further lockdown measures.

Mr Baker, deputy chairman of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group of MPs, said: “Why on earth would we lock down when the vaccines continue to break the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths?

“I am glad we are on a one-way road to freedom, as the Prime Minister has stated, and freedom from Covid regulations, as the Health Secretary has undertaken to MPs in the House of Commons.

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