British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed his government's approach to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in the next phase in his address to the nation Sunday evening.

The prime minister said that the government has a plan to ease lockdown, but "it is a conditional plan," and since "our priority is to protect the public and save lives, we cannot move forward unless we satisfy the five tests."

This is "not the time simply to end the lockdown this week," instead " we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures," said Johnson.

The government is also establishing a new COVID-19 alert system run by a joint biosecurity center, according to Johnson. The alert level "will tell us how tough we have to be in our social distancing measures -- the lower the level, the fewer the measures."