England primed to ‘return to normality’ on 19th

LONDON: Life will “return to normality as far as possible” after July 19 in England as the country moves into the “final furlong” of coronavirus restrictions, a senior government minister has said.

Rumours were abound in the Sunday newspapers that Boris Johnson, who is due to update the nation this week on plans for unlocking, is due to scrap social distancing and mask-wearing requirements on so-called “Freedom Day”.

Communities Secretary appeared to all but confirm those reports as he said the impact of the vaccine on preventing serious illness meant it was time to “roll back” the “difficult” restrictions that have been in place for the past 16 months.

Robert Jenrick told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “It does look as if, thanks to the success of the vaccine programme, that we now have the scope to roll back those restrictions and return to normality as far as possible.”

According to The Sunday Times, mask wearing will become voluntary in all settings and the one metre-plus rule in hospitality venues will end, meaning a return to drinking at the bar without the requirement for table service.

Mass events, including festivals, will also be allowed under the proposals for the final stage of the road map out of lockdown, the paper said.

Cabinet minister Jenrick said that, although cases were rising, they had not translated into “serious illness and death”, allowing the government to be “positive” about unlocking on July 19.

“It does feel as if we are now in the final furlong, in a period in which we can start to live with the virus and move on with our lives,” he said.

Jenrick – who pledged to get rid of his face covering when permitted – said the “State won’t be telling you what to do” as ministers look to move from legal enforcement to personal choice, with people exercising their own judgment on whether or not to carry on wearing masks.

The onus instead will be on ensuring that “every adult gets fully vaccinated” to guard against rising hospital admissions and deaths, he told the Sky News programme Trevor Phillips On Sunday.

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, backed up the minister’s assessment of the impact vaccines were having on guarding against the virus.

He told Marr that Public Health England had found vaccines were affording “over 90 per cent protection against severe disease”, in a result that meant fewer sufferers were requiring hospital treatment.

Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) – which provides evidence to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – told BBC Breakfast: “Hopefully we’ll be well prepared moving forward and we won’t need any sort of restrictions to be put in place as we move into the autumn and winter.” He added: “I hope when we move into the autumn we can start to have a little bit more of what I call the flu relationship with Covid.”

The possibility of a wholesale easing of restrictions will come as a blow to senior doctors, with the British Medical Association petitioning for some measures to remain in place to arrest the “alarming” rise in Covid-19 cases in England. The latest government figures show that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 24,885 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, while a further 18 people had died within 28 days of testing positive.

It comes after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that cases in England nearly doubled in a week, with one in 260 people in private households having Covid in the week to June 26 – the highest level since the week to February 27.