Some grandparents ‘allowed to hug again’

SOME GRANDPARENTS will soon be able to hug their grandchildren again as the Prime Minister announced new measures to reduce isolation caused by the coronavirus lockdown.

Single households will be able to join with one other from Saturday to create a “support bubble”, where they will not have to stay two metres apart and will be treated as one grouping.

The arrangement will mean single parents will be able to visit their parents, reuniting grandchildren with their grandparents. Couples living apart may also be able to meet.

But the new measures are only allowed where one of the households involved is made up of just one adult, and those who are extremely vulnerable and shielding must continue to stay at home.

It comes as a further 245 deaths were recorded yesterday in those who tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the UK total to 41,128. At least 2,690 people in Yorkshire have now died, and the figure rose by 10 yesterday.

The figures underlined a stark message from England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, who said: “Be very clear, we are not at the end of this epidemic, not by a long shot. We are in the middle of it.”

BORIS JOHNSON has announced single households can now buddy up with others to form a “support bubble” to ease isolation in the latest lifting of lockdown measures.

Some grandparents will be able to hug their grandchildren from Saturday under plans set out by the Prime Minister, where adults living alone or single parents can form a bubble with one other household.

They would then be allowed to mix as though they were one household, spending time together indoors, not having to follow the two-metre rule and would be allowed to stay overnight.

Ministers believe the latest easing of the lockdown will help those who have been left isolated while still restricting the spread of coronavirus, including couples kept apart by restrictions.

At yesterday’s Downing Street briefing, Mr Johnson said: “We are making this change to support those who are particularly lonely as a result of lockdown measures.

“It’s a targeted intervention to limit the most harmful effects of the current social restrictions. It is emphatically not designed for people who don’t qualify to start meeting inside other people’s homes, because that remains against the law.

“We would want to make sure that people who have been suffering from loneliness, and have been unable to see their families for a long time, the rest of their families, are able to do that.”

The move could allow children in single-parent households to see one set of grandparents. A grandparent living alone would be allowed to visit the house of their child and grandchildren.

But the move would not allow a couple to visit both parents as neither household would comprise a single adult.

And those shielding will still have to stay away from others to stop the spread of the virus.

Officials admitted the measure was not going to benefit everyone but was targeted at those who had been left isolated by the lockdown restrictions.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, said the so-called R rate of infection across the country was below one, but that the country would continue to have to demonstrate “caution” in easing the lockdown.

Referring to data from the Office for National Statistics, he said about six to seven per cent of the population was thought to have had contracted coronavirus.

He said: “The R is below one, but perhaps only just below one. The epidemic is shrinking, but not fast. Numbers are coming down, but are not yet very low.

“The vast majority of the population remains susceptible to the infection.

“That urges caution, it urges going slowly with changes and it urges measuring very carefully to see the impact and being prepared to reverse things where measures have been taken that have an impact on this, and importantly means looking for outbreaks locally and dealing with those fast.”

When asked whether he would be prepared to go against the Government’s scientific advisers to ease the lockdown faster across the country, Mr Johnson added: “I think there is a balance of risk to be struck.”

The vast majority are still susceptible to the infection.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser,