British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his first public appearance on Monday, days after being discharged from a hospital where he’d spent a week, including three nights in intensive care, after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

In his first public statement after recovering from COVID-19, Johnson said it was too early to ease lockdown as second peak would be disaster, The Guardian reported.

He said that his government “simply cannot spell out” when or how restrictive measures will ease, but offered hope by adding progress was being made with fewer hospital additions and that the United Kingdom was “passing the peak”.

Addressing UK businesses, which fear more economic weakness amid the lockdown, he said: “We simply cannot spell out now how fast or slow or even when those changes will be made.”

“I understand your impatience, I share your anxiety … I entirely share your urgency, it’s the government’s urgency and yet we must also recognize the risk of a second spike, the risk of losing control of that virus, and letting the reproduction rate go back over one. Because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster,” the UK PM said according to Al-Jazeera.

“This is the moment of maximum risk.”

Source: The Guardian and Al-Jazeera