Sage adviser suggests elderly people could wear ribbons to indicate they are social distancing

Measures such as asking elderly people to wear ribbons to indicate they are social distancing may allow society to return to normal quicker, according to a top government scientist.

Professor Calum Semple, a specialist in child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool and who sits on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) offered the advice amid the easing of lockdown restrictions.

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson set to cut the two-metre social distancing rule in half to enable more industries to restart, Prof Semple acknowledged that some people needed way to continue keeping their distance going forwards. 

In an interview with BBC 5 Live on Sunday, Professor Semple said: ‘I could see a position where we need as a society to respect social distancing greater in those that are elderly and more vulnerable, and potentially people might even conceive of wearing a ribbon or something on their lapel, or a badge, that just indicates that they would prefer that their social distance was respected.’

Countries including Singapore and Denmark already follow the official World Health Organisation guidance of one metre, and England are due to follow from July 4 for open spaces like shops, restaurants, schools, offices, factories and parks.

Prof Semple also warned against travelling abroad this summer, despite the government introducing 14-day quarantine periods for incoming travellers. 

Semple added: ‘What has changed in the last three weeks is that we are now seeing lower levels of Covid activity throughout the whole of the United Kingdom whereas three weeks ago we were still seeing some fairly high activity in the North West particularly and in our nursing homes and hospitals,’ he said.

‘Whereas three weeks later, it’s a long time in an outbreak, the number of cases are coming down quite dramatically…they’re not as low as we’d like [them]to be, but it’s low enough where we can start to think about a bit of a nuanced approach to releasing regulations.

‘We still have a problem with some hospital-acquired cases and nursing home acquired cases but on the whole the number of cases in the community is fewer. Now, two metres is definitely safer than one metre…but if there are fewer cases in the community then you can afford to release some of these restrictions,’ he added.