Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GROUNDS EMPTY
Cases: Deaths: 293,239 45,233 Cases:14,070,918 Deaths: 595,149
BORIS Johnson yesterday unveiled the roadmap he hopes will get the country back to normal in time for Christmas.
The Prime Minister announced a raft of changes to the lockdown guidance over the coming months.
The plan includes scrapping advice to work from home, relaxing rules on public transport and allowing fans to return to sporting events for the first time since March.
The PM said it is his “sincere hope that we’ll be able to review the outstanding restrictions and allow a more significant return to normality from November at the earliest – possibly in time for Christmas.”
Announcing the timetable at a Downing Street press conference, he added that he is “hoping for the best and planning for the worst”.
The roadmap will include, from
August 1, people in England no longer being told to work from home if they can. Instead, employers will be allowed to decide whether it is safe.
Mr Johnson said: “It is not for Government to decide how employers should run their companies and whether they want their workforces in the office or not – that is for companies.”
But organisations warned that “significant” caution remains among employees about returning to offices.
The Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, has said there is “absolutely no reason” to change advice on home-working. And Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty yesterday cast doubt on the PM’S ambition to relax social distancing rules in November.
He told the