England plans to scrap laws requiring masks and social distancing later this month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, even as he acknowledged that lifting the restrictions would drive surging COVID-19 cases higher.
Johnson said legal controls would be replaced by “personal responsibility” when the nation moves to the final stage of its lockdown-lifting roadmap. That is scheduled to happen on July 19, though Johnson said a final decision would come on Monday next week.
The change would mean people could throw away their masks after months of enforced face-covering, although they would still be recommended in some enclosed spaces such as public transport.
Photo: Reuters
The removal of social distancing rules would allow nightclubs to open for the first time in 16 months and people to once again order drinks at the bar in a pub. No longer would customers have to scan a smartphone app to provide their contact details.
The government would also stop instructing people to work from home if they can, leaving employers free to return their staff to offices.
The UK as of Monday had recorded 128,495 COVID-19 deaths, the second-highest toll in Europe after Russia, and infections are rising due to the highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was first found in India.
Confirmed cases have shot up from about 2,000 a day earlier this year to 25,000 a day in the past week, but the number of deaths is broadly stable, at fewer than 20 a day.
Public health officials say the vaccination program has weakened the link between infections and deaths, though not severed it. So far, 86 percent of adults have received at least one vaccine dose and 64 percent are fully vaccinated. The British government aims to give everyone aged 18 or over both shots by the middle of September.
Johnson said people would have to “learn to live with this virus” — a major shift in tone from a leader who has previously painted COVID-19 as an enemy to be vanquished.
“I want to stress from the outset that this pandemic is far from over,” Johnson said, predicting that cases could hit 50,000 a day by July 19. “We must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from COVID, [but] if we can’t reopen our society in the next few weeks, when we will be helped by the arrival of summer and by the school holidays, then we must ask ourselves: ‘When will we be able to return to normal?’”
That message was welcomed by many lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative Party, who say the economic and social damage of such long-lasting restrictions outweighs the public health benefits, and populist newspapers, which have dubbed July 19 “Freedom Day.”
Hospitality and performing arts businesses also welcomed the announcement.
“I feel oddly numb, like I almost can’t believe it. Lots of work to do, but we might actually have made it through,” Music Venue Trust chief executive Mark Davy wrote on Twitter.
However, public health officials and scientists urged caution, saying ditching masks and social distancing altogether could be dangerous.
Psychologist Stephen Reicher, a member of the British government’s scientific advisory committee, said “proportionate mitigations” against the spread of the virus, such as masks in crowded places, should stay in place.
Richard Tedder, a virologist at Imperial College London, said that easing up while infections are still rampant “comes with the very real risk of facilitating the escape of variants which will be even more resistant to vaccines and potentially more infectious.”
“Failing to recognize this is playing with fire,” Tedder said.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said that the government was being “reckless.”
“A balanced approach, a proper plan, would say keep key protections,” Starmer said. “One of them would be masks in enclosed places and on public transport — that’s a commonsense position. More ventilation, that’s happening in other countries, is absolutely essential and proper payments for those that need to self-isolate.”
The changes announced by Johnson apply to England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are following their own road maps out of lockdown.
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