English attractions, shops to resume

Various stores and outdoor attractions in England are set to open Monday (local time) for the first time in nearly three months, as the government continues to ease its coronavirus lockdown.

Thousands of nonessential retailers such as bookstores and electronics outlets hope to welcome their first customers since halting in-store business in late March.

Leisure sites such as drive-in cinemas, safari parks and the outdoor parts of zoos will now be able to reopen, while places of worship are also set to swing open their doors again for individual prayer.

All sites will need to comply with social distancing rules requiring people to keep at least two meters apart and advising them to wear face coverings such as masks or scarves when indoors.

Meanwhile, the coverings will be compulsory on public transport across England from Monday, with operators allowed to bar travel to those not wearing them.

“I know people are anxious,” finance minister Rishi Sunak said Sunday as he encouraged shopping to help kick-start an economy seeing unprecedented declines.

“It’s a slightly different experience... but it is a safe environment and we should all be able to go out knowing that we should be able to shop in confidence,” he told Sky News.

Nonessential shops in Northern Ireland reopened Friday, but Scotland and Wales have not yet decided when to follow suit, as Britain’s devolved governments lift restrictions at different speeds.

The nonessential retail sector employs 1.3 million people and contributes 46.6 billion pounds ($58.4 billion) to the British economy annually, according to the finance ministry, and its restart is viewed as economically vital.

Streets have been cleaned, footpaths widened and hand-sanitizing stations installed in London’s West End commercial district ahead of Monday. But Jace Tyrrell, CEO of New West End Company, a partnership of 600 British and international operators in the area, predicted it will be “quite some time until we get back to normal.”

“Retailers are going to have to adapt,” she told AFP.

Britain has been among the worst-hit countries by the pandemic, with the number of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 deaths passing 50,000 last week, according to official statistics.

The government’s less comprehensive rolling daily death count of those who have tested positive for the virus stands at nearly 42,000.

Despite the grim tolls, the transmission rate has dropped dramatically since the pandemic’s peak in Britain in early April.