Johnson nudges workers back
UK leader gives businesses ‘more discretion’ to bring in staff
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday that people will no longer be told to work from home and avoid public transit in a major easing of lockdown restrictions, even as he said the government was “preparing for the worst” in case of a new coronavirus spike this winter.
Johnson said the government’s advice to avoid nonessential use of public transit was being lifted immediately, and that from Aug. 1 workers would no longer be told to do their jobs from home, if possible. He said it will now be up to businesses to determine whether they can bring employees back to workplaces in a “COVID-SEcure” way.
The U.K.’S official pandemic death toll, which stood at more than 45,000 as of Friday, has for several weeks been the highest in Europe.
Johnson is trying to walk a tightrope, avoiding a resurgence of the virus while also encouraging a return to shops, restaurants and workplaces to kick-start a badly battered economy.
While some businesses have seen customers return in previous stages of lockdown easing, those that rely on office workers are struggling, and Johnson is keen to see more people go back to city-center workplaces.
But the prime minister’s move to give employers “more discretion” about whether to ask their staffs to return to regular work locations appears at odds with the views of his chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, who said Thursday that there was “absolutely no reason” to change the work-from-home advice.
Johnson said he was not ordering people back to the office.
“Obviously it’s not for government to decide how employers should run their companies and whether they want their workers in the office or not,” he said.
Meanwhile, the British government ordered an urgent review Friday into how daily coronavirus death figures in England are calculated amid claims the current method overestimates the tally.
The review was prompted by concerns raised over why England is still recording way more deaths than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Researchers looked at whether differing methods may account for the discrepancy.
In other developments:
Israel announced sweeping new restrictions on Friday in response to a new surge in coronavirus cases, including weekend closures of many businesses and limiting restaurants to takeout and delivery. The government announced the restrictions after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “interim steps” were needed to avoid another general lockdown.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government is being deterred by the coronarvirus from holding the usual mass celebration to mark the victory of the country’s revolution July 19. Instead, it was planning to unveil a new addition to its collection of monuments in the old city center of Managua on Friday.
India crossed 1 million coronavirus cases on Friday, prompting concerns about its readiness to confront an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country’s feeble health care system.
Italy’s anti-mafia investigators issued a dramatic warning Friday that mobsters will scheme to get some of hundreds of billions of euros in European Union recovery aid after the pandemic.