The UK administration is feeling the pressure for setting out an exit strategy as the economy is reeling under the stress of the coronavirus lockdown. The government borrowing is highest since World War II.
The political opponents and some epidemiologists have trained the guns against Prime Minister Boris Johnson government for its alleged delayed response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Johnson has been recuperating at his county residence after being seriously ill with Covid-19.
With the number of deaths in hospitals hitting 20,732 on Monday, ministers are working to roll out a mass testing and tracking programme to try to reduce the rate of transmission and possibly ease stringent measures that have all but shut the economy. We are experiencing an economic contraction that is faster and deeper than anything we have seen in the past century, or possibly several centuries," Bank of England interest-rate setter Jan Vlieghe said. The recovery, he said, was unlikely to be swift.
The official figures are thought to be undercounting the true death toll by several thousand, as they do not account for non-hospital deaths, or those who have died in the community without being tested for coronavirus. The IHS Markit/CIPS Flash UK Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to a new record low of 12.9 from 36.0 in March - not even close to the weakest forecast in a Reuters poll of economists that had pointed to a reading of 31.4.
The UK will issue 180 billion pounds ($222bn) of government debt between May and July, more than it had previously planned for the entire financial year. The country's debt mountain exceeds $2.5 trillion and its public sector net borrowing could reach 14 per cent of gross domestic product this year, the biggest single-year deficit since World War II.
