Johnson begins lifting UK’s lockdown
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has encouraged people to return to work from Monday, in the first phase of a three-step plan to ease lockdown measures that have been in place since late March to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Johnson said employees who are not able to perform their roles from home, including those in the construction and manufacturing industries, could return to work starting this week. But he said people should avoid public transport, if possible, and use cars, bicycles, or walk to workplaces.
He also said members of the same household can now sunbathe in parks and play sports together, and are permitted unlimited outdoor exercise. People in the United Kingdom had previously been restricted to leaving their homes once a day for exercise.
During a national address delivered on Sunday evening, he said that the second step in the government’s “road map for reopening society” would involve the reopening of shops in phases from June 1, and students would return to school in stages.
Johnson said that businesses in the hospitality industry could resume operations in July under step three of the plan.
He said that the whole plan was conditional on the rate of infection, and noted that lockdown measures would once again tighten if the epidemic gathered pace.
However, while Johnson encouraged some people to return to work, the leaders of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland said they were sticking with the existing “stay-at-home” message.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, criticized the government’s approach following Johnson’s speech on Sunday.
“There are real problems here. Those that can’t work from home are being told to go to work from tomorrow, but don’t use public transport. That’s quite a thing to spring on people. The statement raises as many questions as it answers,” Starmer told the BBC.
The total novel coronavirus-related death toll in Britain has hit 32,065, the Department of Health and Social Care said on Monday.
The virus has infected 1,556,150 people and claimed 152,418 lives across Europe as of Sunday, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Tighten boarding checks
Meanwhile, Russia’s federal anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Monday over 10,000 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 221,344, including 2,009 deaths.
Russian airlines plan to tighten verification of passengers’ residence addresses when boarding flights going overseas, Russian
Communications announced on Sunday.
The spokesperson for the World Health Organization in Russia Melita Vujnovic said the growth rate of coronavirus cases in recent days suggested that Russia had reached a plateau.
In Germany, many industries are to cut jobs due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, Germany’s Ifo institute said in a statement on Monday.
In April, 58 percent of restaurants, 50 percent of hotels, and 43 percent of travel agencies decided to lay off workers, said the Munichbased research institution.
“From now on, the crisis will have an impact on the German labor market,” said Klaus Wohlrabe, the head of surveys at Ifo Institute.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 357 to 169,575, data from the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases showed on Monday. The reported death toll rose by 22 to 7,417.
While in France, millions of residents were set to cautiously emerge from one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns on Monday, once more able to engage in everyday activities that have become unexpectedly precious, such as visiting shops and getting their hair cut.
Ministry