Marking one year in office, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Sunday effectively ruled out another nationwide lockdown, calling the option is now akin to a "nuclear deterrent".
"It's not just that we're getting much better at spotting the disease and isolating it locally, but we understand far more which groups it affects, how it works, how it's transmitted, so the possibility of different types of segmentation, of enhanced shielding for particular groups, is now there," he told The Sunday Telegraph in an exclusive interview.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not blown his government off course from the major reforming agenda he set out last year, said Johnson.
"We want to be a transformative Government, because there's a massive opportunity in this country to do things differently and to do things better," he said.
In an apparent warning to Conservative backbenchers now seeking further curbs on Chinese firms, Johnson warned against "a sort of very, very Manichaean or black and white view of the issue, because it is complex".
The British government announced Tuesday that buying new Huawei 5G equipment will be banned after Dec. 31, 2020 and all Huawei equipment will be removed from Britain's 5G networks by the end of 2027.
In January, London announced its new plans to safeguard the country's telecoms network, which is widely seen as approving a restricted role for Huawei in helping build the country's 5G network.
