Johnson to return to Downing Street office on Monday

Bloomberg

Boris Johnson was expected to return to work on Monday and take charge of the UK’s handling of the pandemic, a month after he was struck down by the coronavirus.
The government has been without a leader since the prime minister was admitted to the hospital on April 5.
Since being released he’s been slowly easing his way back, holding daily video calls with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and his Downing Street team, and speaking to his key medical advisers Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance.
“The PM has been doing all the right things and following his doctor’s advice to come back to work,” a Downing Street official said. “He is raring to go.”
Johnson’s return comes at another critical juncture for the government, which has found itself on the defensive since the Covid-19 crisis began. The country’s death toll, from hospitals only, has topped 20,000, the fifth highest in the world, and business has slowed to a crawl.
Six business leaders, including billionaires Michael Spencer and Peter Hargreaves, have written to the government asking them to ease lockdown restrictions, according to the Sunday Times. Keir Starmer, the recently installed leader of the opposition Labour Party, has written to the prime minister urging the government to work on an exit strategy.
“We want to prevent a second wave of this horrendous virus and to do that we have to make sure that we continue with the measures we have put in place,” Priti Patel, the UK’s home secretary said in a televised briefing.
The UK government has ordered the production of as many as 50 million new antibody tests, designed to allow those who have already contracted the virus and developed immunity to return to work, according to the Mail on Sunday. However the World Health Organization has questioned whether catching the disease provides protection from re-infection.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, in an editorial to the mass-circulation
Sun newspaper, sought to explain how the central bank was supporting the economy.
There’s some evidence that Johnson’s experience in St. Thomas’ Hospital — he was admitted to the intensive care unit, and credited the staff there with saving his life — has made him less gung-ho in his attitude to the virus.