LONDON (AP) – Children in England will return to class and people will be able to meet a friend outside for coffee within two weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday as he unleashed a slow relaxation of one of Europe’s most severe pandemic locks. .
But those who crave a haircut, a restaurant meal or a pint in a bar have almost two months to wait, and people will only be able to embrace loved ones they do not live with in early May.
Johnson said the government’s plan would move the country “cautiously but irreversibly” out of the closure.
“We are going out on what I hope is a one-way street to freedom,” he told lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
Britain had the deadliest outbreak of coronavirus in Europe, with more than 120,000 deaths. Faced with a dominant virus variant that scientists say is more transmissible and deadly than the original virus, the country has spent much of the winter under strict lockdown – the third since March 2020. Bars, restaurants, gyms, schools, hair salons and non-essential shops are closed, people are asked not to travel from their local area and foreign holidays are illegal.
This will slowly start to change on March 8 when children go back to school and people may meet one friend or family member for a chat or picnic outdoors. Three weeks later, people will be able to gather outdoors in small groups for sports or recreation.
Under the government plan, shops and hairdressers will reopen on April 12. Also pubs and restaurants, though just outside. Indoor venues such as theaters and cinemas, and indoor seating in pubs and restaurants, are scheduled for May 17, and a limited number of people will be able to return to sports stadiums. It is also the earliest date on which Britons may allow foreign holidays.
The final phase of the plan, in which all legal limits on social contact will be removed and nightclubs can reopen after 15 months of closure, is on 21 June.
The government says the dates could all be postponed as infections increase.
The measures announced apply to England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have slightly different connections, with some children returning to class in Scotland and Wales on Monday.
The hope for a return to normalcy rests largely on Britain’s fast – moving vaccination program, which has given more than 17.5 million people, a third of the country’s adult population, the first of two doses of vaccination. The government aims to give every adult a chance at vaccine by 31 July.
Johnson said vaccines would help Britain put a miserable year behind it.
But the government warns that the return of the country’s social and economic life will be slow. Johnson’s Conservative government is accused of reopening the country too soon after the first closure in the spring and rejecting scientific advice ahead of a brief “power outage” in the fall.
It does not want to make the same mistakes again, although Johnson is under pressure from some conservative lawmakers and business owners, who argue that the restrictions need to be lifted quickly to revive the battered economy.
The Conservative government – in normal times an opponent of abundant public spending – spent 280 billion pounds ($ 393 billion) in 2020 to deal with the pandemic, including billions paying the salaries of nearly 10 million workers.
British Chamber of Commerce Director-General Adam Marshall welcomed the “clarity” on reopening dates, but said that “the future of thousands of businesses and millions of jobs still hangs in the balance.”
Johnson said the government’s annual budget statement on March 3 would include new measures “to protect jobs and livelihoods in the UK”.
The government says further relief depends on vaccinations that are effective in reducing hospitalization and deaths, and that infection rates remain low and that no new virus variants are emerging that are undermining the plans.
Two UK studies released on Monday showed that COVID-19 vaccination programs are contributing to a sharp drop in disease and hospitalization, raising hopes that the shots will work just as well as in closely monitored studies.
Preliminary results from a study in Scotland found that the Pfizer vaccine was reduced by up to 85% four weeks after the first dose, while the uptake by AstraZeneca was reduced by up to 94%. In England, preliminary data from a study among health professionals showed that the Pfizer vaccine reduced the risk of catching COVID-19 after one dose by 70%, a figure that rose to 85% after the second dose.
Scientists stressed that the results were preliminary.
Johnson said reopening society, even with vaccines, would inevitably lead to more infections and deaths.
He said there was “no credible path to a zero-COVID Britain, or a zero-COVID world.”
But, he added, “we can not persevere indefinitely with constraints that weaken our economy, our physical and mental well-being and the life chances of our children.”
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