‘Wear face coverings’, Britain says; confusion surrounds lockdown

Prime Minister Boris Johnson set out a cautious plan on Monday to get Britain back to work, including advice on wearing home-made face coverings, though his attempt to lift the coronavirus lockdown prompted confusion and even satire. The United Kingdom has one of the world’s highest official COVID-19 death tolls and, after criticism that he was slow to impose a lockdown, Johnson is wary of triggering a second wave of infection.

“Our challenge now is to find a way forward that preserves our hard-won gains while easing the burden of lockdown,”he told the House of Commons. “This is a supremely difficult balance.”Opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said the government had been issuing conflicting guidance that did not answer the public’s practical questions about going back to work.“What the country needs at this time is clarity and reassurance, but at the moment both are in pretty short supply,” he said.

Having refused for several weeks to give any indication of how it planned to start relaxing the lockdown, the government opted for a gradual release of information over 24 hours, starting with a solemn televised address by Johnson on Sunday. On Monday, the government published a 51-page document entitled “Our Plan to Rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy”, followed by a series of sector-by-sector documents offering guidance to employers and workers. — Reuters