Johnson backs tighter mask rule

Boris Johnson has said the UK government is looking at introducing stricter rules on wearing face coverings in England, in an apparent U-turn.

While wearing of masks in shops has become mandatory in Scotland, it is only required on public transport in England. The Prime Minister has also come in for personal criticism for not being pictured in public wearing a mask.

“As we get the numbers down in the way that we have and we really stamp out outbreaks in the way that we are, I do think we need to be stricter in insisting people wear face coverings in confined spaces where they are meeting people they don’t normally meet,” Mr Johnson said in an online Q&A session with members of the public.

“We are looking at ways of making sure that people really do have face coverings in shops, for instance, where there is a risk of transmission.”

The Prime Minister said expert opinion on face coverings had shifted over the course of the pandemic.

“The balance of scientific opinion seems to have shifted more in favour of them than it was. We are very keen to follow that,” he said.

“I do want to get back to a world where the British people are able to shake hands that’s what we are aiming for.

“But face coverings, we increasingly think that we have got to be very insistent in confined spaces, where you are meeting people you don’t normally come into contact with - transport, shops - wear a face cover.”

Mr Johnson urged people in England to go back to work, in a shift from a policy of asking people to work from home if they can.

“It’s very important that people should be going back to work if they can now,” he said. “I think everybody has sort of taken the ‘stay at home if you can’ - I think we should now say, well, ‘go back to work if you can’.”