Outdoor sport and socialising will be among the first activities to be allowed after schools return next month, it is understood.
Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown will prioritise open-air contact and set out dates for when bars, restaurants and shops can reopen, The Times reported.
According to the newspaper, team and individual sports such as tennis, along with limited social gatherings outside, could be possible within weeks of pupils returning to the classroom on March 8.
When the hospitality sector does reopen, the rules will be simplified and pubs will no longer have to serve alcohol with a ‘substantial meal’.
It is likely that outside markets will open before high street shops, and al-fresco dining before eating indoors.
Government sources said that the plans were ‘tentative’ and that only the date for the earliest return of pupils had been agreed.
A new set of indicators to judge whether England can relax some measures is being prepared, with the PM set to scrap the regional tier system, is is claimed.
Mr Johnson is facing pressure from some Conservative MPs to lift restrictions amid signs pressure on the NHS is beginning to ease.
England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty said this week that the peak of the second wave had passed, while a senior scientist predicted yesterday that Britain could be back to near normal by the summer.
SAGE’s Andrew Hayward said the vaccination programme offered a key to easing the lockdown.
He told the BBC: ‘Once the most vulnerable people, particularly those over-50 and those with chronic illnesses, are vaccinated then yes, I think we can see a significant return to normality.
‘I think what we’ll see is a phased opening up as vaccination levels increase. Then we’ll be more or less back to normal for the summer, I would imagine.’
This comes after it was reported scientific advisers are ‘moving the goalposts’ for easing Covid restrictions, potentially delaying the end of lockdown.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is said to be concerned that experts are focusing on bringing case numbers down, instead of the initial target of protecting the NHS and saving lives.
Mark Harper, former chief whip and chairman of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, has said that the Government should ‘get rid of restrictions completely’ once all over-50s had received at least one vaccine jab, which could potentially be by the end of May.
But NHS chiefs are likely to warn against any such measures.
Hospitals still have thousands more Covid-19 patients than last April.
Head of the lobby group NHS Providers Chris Hopson warned yesterday that intensive care units were running at 70 % above normal capacity, with numbers coming down ‘very slowly’.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
0 Commentaires