WEDDINGS, SHOPS AND WORK... WHAT NEW RULES MEAN
BORIS JOHNSON said Britain faced a ‘perilous’ moment in the fight against coronavirus as he unveiled a swingeing set of restrictions that will likely last for six months. JASON GROVES looks at the key measures, how they will be enforced and what they mean for daily life.
HOSPITALITY CURFEW
Pubs, restaurants and other hospitality and tourism businesses will be banned from opening between 10pm and 5am. Takeaways, including chip shops, will also have to close to customers at 10pm, although deliveries can continue. Venues will be able to operate only ‘table service’, meaning drinkers cannot queue at the bar. People cannot be served a drink unless they have a seat. The rules, which come in tomorrow, apply to most hospitality venues, including hotels and cafes. Cinemas and theatres will be able to screen films and put on shows that finish after 10pm but will not be able to serve refreshments after that time.
MORE FACE MASKS
Shop staff will be required to wear masks at work from tomorrow, extending rules which currently apply only to customers. Bar staff, waiters and others working in indoor hospitality will have to wear a mask. Drinkers and diners will be exempt from wearing a mask while seated but have to wear one while moving to or from their table, or while walking in a hotel corridor. Passengers in taxis and minicabs will have to wear face coverings from today.
‘RULE OF 6’ MODIFIED
Indoor adult team sports such as five-a-side football will lose their exemption from the ban on gatherings of more than six people, meaning they are effectively outlawed. Indoor PE lessons at school will continue to be exempt, regardless of the numbers involved. Exemptions for indoor choirs and amateur dramatics will end. No further limits on household mixing in England, unlike Scotland where people will be banned from visiting each other’s homes.
WORKING FROM HOME IS BACK
Office staff who can ‘work effectively’ from home ‘should do so over the winter’.
The Government drive to get 80 per cent of civil servants back to their desks has been abandoned. Shop staff, builders and those in construction told to continue to go to work, as are those providing ‘essential services’, including teachers and officials processing documents such as passports.
ARMY ON STANDBY
1,500 troops will be put on standby to ‘back-fill’ for police on guarding duties, freeing up officers to enforce the new restrictions. Fines for not wearing a mask or attending gatherings of more than six are doubled from £100 to £200 from tomorrow. Legal obligation on all leisure, entertainment and tourism businesses to enforce the ‘rule of six’ and social distancing measures. Fines of up to £10,000 for businesses that fail to keep their premises ‘Covid-secure’.
SIX MONTHS OF CURBS
New restrictions likely to remain in place for at least six months ‘unless we palpably make progress’ against the virus. Plans to trial socially distanced crowds at sporting and business events next month put on hold. PM warns ‘significantly greater restrictions’ will be brought in unless ‘our new measures work and our behaviour changes’.
WEDDINGS & FUNERALS
The limit on the number of people allowed to attend a wedding will be reduced from 30 to 15 from Monday. Weddings this weekend can go ahead as planned, but difficult decisions about guest lists will have to be made from next week. The new restrictions will throw the plans of thousands of people into disarray after weddings were exempted from the rule of six just last week. Funerals are exempt from the new rules, with the number of mourners staying at a maximum of 30 unless specified in areas with local lockdown restrictions.