Boris Johnson will this week reveal his ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy to ease the coronavirus lockdown and put the UK economy back into gear.
The Prime Minister is expected to reveal his roadmap of proposals to very carefully and slowly lift the restriction in place since late March, but come down hard on any secondary hotspots that emerge.
The first easing of restrictions is not expected to come into force until June, and will be accompanied by the stricter enforcement of breaches of the remaining rules, with fines rising from the current £60 to more than £3,000 for repeat offenders.
It will include a massive PR blitz urging people who cannot work from home to go in where they can safely, and urging key workers to send their children back to school to free them up for vital tasks.
Ministers are concerned that the public have gone beyond the letter of the law introduced when the pandemic began to sweep the nation, according to the Sunday Times.
A senior Whitehall source told the paper: ‘What you are going to see this week is a restatement of what we thought would happen right at the beginning when we first issued the lockdown.
‘But it’s going to be repackaged as a slow opening up of the economy. Please will construction sites reopen, please will you go to work if you can without hurting people, please if you are a key worker will you send your children to school.
‘We’ve gone round the houses to get back to where we started.’
It came as a new poll revealed more than four in five Britons are against lockdown restrictions being eased for schools, pubs and restaurants this week.
Just 17 per cent of those polled by Opinium for the Observer thought the time was right to consider re-opening schools, with smaller proportions of people thinking conditions had been met to allow cinemas, sporting stadia and nightclubs to open their doors.
Ministers will aim to tread a fine line between kickstarting economic activity and keeping ‘R’, the reproduction rate of the virus, below 1.
The number of people who have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK as of 5pm on Friday rose to 28,131, up by 621.
The death toll has edged closer to that of Italy, which now stands at 28,710 and is the highest in Europe, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The Prime Minister (right), whose son Wilfred was revealed to the world by mum Carrie Symonds yesterday (left) is expected to reveal his roadmap of proposals to very carefully and slowly lift the restriction in place since late March, but come down hard on any secondary hotspots that emerge.
Ministers are concerned that the public have gone beyond the letter of the law introduced when the pandemic began to sweep the nation, according to the Sunday Times
Get businesses going again
The Government’s main priority is getting the economy going again, amid dire statistics about commercial activity and hundreds of billions of pounds flowing out of the treasury to prop up firms and pay the wages of furloughed workers.
It comes as a leading business group urges the Government to be ‘bold’ and not shy away from sustaining high levels of public spending.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) laid out a series of moves for a phased end to the current lockdown in a letter to the PM.
Steps should include safely reopening public spaces, schools and public transport, as well as workplaces and commercial spaces, said the letter.
Moves should be made to minimise job losses and business failures, putting the UK economy on a ‘high-growth, high-wage and low unemployment trajectory’ as soon as possible.
The plans due to be laid out this week are reported to focus on those who work outside, including construction workers, because of science suggesting the virus is harder to catch outdoors.
Public transport is likely to return to normal levels and non-food retailers, factories, and warehouses will be encouraged to open.
Work on this has already started: people yesterday flocked to newly reopened DIY stores and rubbish tips.
Orderly queues formed at branches of Homebase, which opened 164 stores, as well as B&Q and Wickes. Costa Coffee drive-throughs were also busy.
Offices are expected to instruct most of their staff to continue working from home.
But for those who cannot there will be strict rules for office spaces
They include mandatory floor markings to keep staff two metres apart, staggered start times and breaks, limits on how many people can get in lifts and regular deep cleaning, according to the Sunday Express.
And in a blow to everyone desperate to celebrate the release of the lockdown with a cold pint in their local, pubs and restaurants are likely to remain closed for weeks or even months longer.
This is because the bring people into close proximity to each other in difficult to control ways.
But the phased reopening will be accompanied by harder action against those who break social distancing rules.
School is not out for summer
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps this morning told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘It’s no secret that of course we want the kids to go back to school but I’d be over-egging it to say there’s a date in place, there’s a plan in place’
Primary schools could re-open on June 1, with students from Years 10 and 12 becoming the first in a wave of secondary pupils flocking to classes.
Boris Johnson is hoping to put teachers on three weeks’ notice to re-open primary schools in England to all pupils as soon as next month.
Whitehall sources have claimed the earliest possible return of primary schoolchildren is intended to help parents to return to work.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps this morning told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘It’s no secret that of course we want the kids to go back to school but I’d be over-egging it to say there’s a date in place, there’s a plan in place.’
It will also prevent damage being done to ‘early years development’ about which Gavin Williamson has warned, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
Officials are understood to be contemplating limiting the size of classes temporarily, while the question of when to re-open nurseries is an open one.
Pupils from Years 10 and 12 would then head to school, provided ministers were satisfied the transmission rate did not cause a ‘second peak’.
The move is being considered as data show that younger children are potentially less likely to transmit Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The discussions also come after Mr Williams told the education select committee this week that schools would not reopen opening during the summer holidays as a way of helping pupils who have missed out on education to catch up.
The education secretary also suggested a phased return to schools, saying it was ‘not realistic or practical’ for all school children to return in one day.
He said scientists were looking at other countries for best practice and that a special team of the Scientific Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had been set up to focus solely on schools reopening.
Ban on picnics at beauty spots to be lifted
Ministers are preparing to lift restrictions on outdoor activities such as picnics as the first stage in relaxing the lockdown rules.
The Mail on Sunday understands the plans – likely to be introduced later this month if coronavirus infection rates continue to fall – will mean people can exercise several times each day and drive to the countryside and other outdoor spaces for walks and picnics.
However, they will only be allowed to do so with members of their household and must stay at least two metres (6ft 6in) away from other groups.
The change, which will end the sight of police officers moving on solitary sunbathers in parks, follows new scientific advice to ministers that the risk of transmitting the disease outside is substantially lower than indoors.
But people will still be barred from areas such as playgrounds and beaches where crowds congregate and the two-metre rule becomes harder to observe.