PM’s ‘1 metre plus’ rule... if you wear a mask

BRITONS will be allowed to stand less than two metres from each other if they wear face masks or meet outside, Boris Johnson will announce tomorrow.

The Prime Minister will unveil a new ‘one metre plus’ rule to help the economy get moving again.

Individuals will no longer have to keep two metres apart if they take other measures to limit the spread of the virus.

For example, restaurants and pubs could use partitions between tables so that diners can be sat closely together while minimising the risk of catching coronavirus. Mr Johnson has ordered a review of the two-metre rule with experts including the chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

They are due to report back to a meeting of the Covid-19 Strategy Committee today.

A Cabinet meeting will be held tomorrow morning to sign off on any changes before they are announced in the afternoon by the Prime Minister in Parliament. Health Secretary

Matt Hancock yesterday said plastic screens and masks are measures that would lessen the risk of spreading covid if the twometre rule is changed.

He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘There are all sorts of mitigations you can put in place to be physically closer than two metres but not have the transmission of the virus or the risk of the transmission.’

Mr Hancock added the review of the rule would ‘undoubtedly help’ with the reopening of schools to all pupils.

Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,

said people wearing masks can be safer closer together than those not wearing them. He told the Andrew Marr Show: ‘I’m actually not as rigid about this two-metre rule. It’s created a false sense of security.

‘I’d rather be at one metre of someone who is infected but both of us wear a mask than at two metres without a mask.

‘And when you look at the countries that have been pretty successful in dealing with the pandemic, like Singapore, Hong Kong or Denmark, they follow the World Health Organisation rule of one metre.’