LONDON: British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government will need to analyse the data as it slowly unlocks from the national COVID-19 lockdown because it is wary of the impact virus variants from Brazil and South Africa could have.

"It is very important to see the impact of steps that we're taking," Hancock told Sky News. "We want to set out a roadmap which gives people guidance in terms of how we think we'll be able to do this.

We also absolutely will be vigilant to the data on the way.

"We've currently seen other new variants that thankfully there's very, very, very few of in this country now, but we've got to protect against them."