BACK IN THE PUB GARDEN FOR EASTER!
● Plan for ALL pupils to return on March 8th ● Hancock’s ‘jig of joy’ as 15 million jabs t arget is hit ● Outside dining at end of March and we will be...
LOCKDOWN misery is set to end by Easter, with people finally free to drink in beer gardens and dine outside restaurants again.
Under Boris Johnson’s ‘roadmap’ for a steady return to normality, No 10 plans to allow the beleaguered hospitality industry to lift its shutters, most likely on Tuesday March 30 or the following day.
In a break from earlier pre-lockdown rules, the 10pm curfew and the requirement to have a substantial meal with alcohol will be abandoned. The news comes as the Prime Minister
prepares to celebrate meeting his target of vaccinating the 15 million most vulnerable people in the UK by tomorrow.
In his most upbeat assessment for weeks, Mr Johnson yesterday said: ‘I won’t hide it from you. I’m optimistic, but we have to be cautious.’
If the downward trend for infections, hospitalisations and deaths continues, primary and secondary school pupils will return to classrooms on March 8. On the same day, picnics will be permitted within households and if one person wants to meet up with one other.
Restrictions on sports such as tennis and golf, where social distancing is easier, are likely to be eased in April.
According to the latest figures, there were 13,308 new positive cases in the previous 24 hours – down 27 per cent on a week earlier. Hospital admissions fell by 26 per cent to 1,741 over the same period, while deaths were down by the same proportion to 621.
The vaccination programme continued to surge towards its target – up by 544,603 to a total of 14,556,827. It means 26.9 per cent of the adult population has now received at least one dose.
The steady fall in new infections, and estimates that the critical R rate of infection now lies between 0.7 and 0.9, has increased the restlessness on the Tory backbenches over the economic and societal damage being caused by lockdown.
This weekend, 63 Tory MPs have signed a letter to Mr Johnson urging him to use the vaccine to ‘ give us permanent immunity from Covid-related lockdowns and restrictions’.
The letter, organised by Mark Harper, the chair of the Covid Recovery Group of Conservative MPs, argues that ‘just like Covid, lockdowns and restrictions cause immense social and health damage and have a huge impact on people’s livelihoods’.
Urging the reopening of all schools on March 8 and of hospitality by Easter, the weekend of April 4, the MPs say: ‘All restrictions remaining after March 8 should be proportionate to the ever-increasing number of people we have protected.
‘The burden is on Ministers to demonstrate the evidence of effectiveness and proportionality with a cost-benefit analysis for each restriction, and a roadmap for when they will be removed... Once all nine priority groups have been protected by the end of April, there is no justification for any legislative restrictions to remain.’
They conclude: ‘This should be a moment of unity – for our country and our party – as we look ahead with confidence, hope and optimism for a much brighter future, as we reclaim our lives once and for all.’
The timetable they demand for reopening schools and hospitality look set to be met amid a growing sense in Downing Street that the ‘tide is turning’ in the year-long Covid crisis.
In other developments:
● Health Secretary Matt Hancock today reveals that he had ‘danced a little jig’ at the success of the vaccine roll- out, writing in The Mail on Sunday that ‘this is a take-up beyond my highest hopes.’
● There were claims that some care home bosses are threatening staff who refuse to have the jab with the sack;
● Former Prime Minister Tony Blair uses another Mail on Sunday article to call for the widespread introduction of ‘vaccine passports’ – already set to be used in some City firms – saying: ‘There is no prospect of a return to anything like normal without enabling people to show their Covid status’;
● Former Brexit Secretary David Davis called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak not to raise taxes in the March 3 Budget, arguing in this newspaper that such a move would threaten Britain’s post-Covid recovery.;
● Mr Sunak was urged to provide a £4.5 billion rescue fund to the ailing night-time economy;
Mr Hancock clashed with senior Tory Sir Charles Walker over the ten-year jail terms facing those who flout new quarantine rules, with Sir Charles saying the policy was ‘disastrous’ and a repeat should cost the Health Secretary his job;
The head of Heathrow warned that the airport is not ready to roll out the hotel quarantine scheme set to be imposed from tomorrow;
AstraZeneca said it would expand trials of its Oxford vaccine to children as young as six while Janssen, another pharma firm, said it may start testing its jab on newborn babies and pregnant women;
Police said officers would be carrying out spot checks on drivers today to see if they were making ‘ non- essential’ trips to visit lovers on Valentine’s Day;
● A video emerged of militant teachers boasting about how they used threats of strike action t o keep classrooms closed, fuelling fears that hardline unions will seek to derail plans to reopen schools;
● Documents emerged suggesting the Wuhan laboratory at the centre of global suspicion over the pandemic planned to experiment on live bats;
● Additional surge t esting began in Middlesbrough, Walsall and Hampshire after cases of the South Africa variant of Covid-19 were identified.
Speaking during a visit to the Teesside plant where the new Novavax vaccine will be manufactured, Mr Johnson said: ‘Our children’s education is our number one priority.
‘But then, working forward, getting non- essential retail open as well, and then, in due course, as and when we can, prudently, cautiously, of course, we want to be opening hospitality as well. I will be trying to set out as much as I possibly can in as much detail as I can, always understanding that we have to be wary of the pattern of disease.
‘We don’t want to be forced into any kind of retreat or reverse ferret’ – a media term denoting a sudden reversal of direction.
Echoing Mr Hancock’s claim that Covid could become a ‘treatable’ disease, Mr Johnson predicted we will have ‘to learn to live with’ coronavirus.
‘I won’t hide it, I’m optimistic,’ Boris says ‘We don’t want to be forced into a retreat ’