England’s schools to resume March 8, social contact limits over by June 21 - Boris Johnson
A structured strategy to end England's Covid-19 lockdown has been laid out by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson, under pressure to give millions of people trapped at home more freedoms and bring hope to shuttered businesses, said the first stage would give priority to schools returning on March 8 where only modest outdoor socialization would be permitted.
The so-called roadmap would then go through four iterations, with five weeks between, and the final phase, where much of the constraints would be removed, not beginning at the earliest until June 21.
"The threat remains significant," Johnson told Parliament, stating the blueprint was tentative yet permanent, saying it was essential.
“We’re able to take these steps because of the resolve of the British public and the extraordinary success of our NHS (National Health Service) in vaccinating more than 17.5 million people across the UK.”
With almost 130,000 fatalities, Britain has suffered the world’s fifth-highest official death toll from the pandemic and its $3 trillion economy has seen its biggest crash in over 300 years.
But Johnson said the swift start of the roll-out of the vaccine plus a dramatic decline in infections will now set out a gradual easing of the difficult national lockout of England, which began on Jan. 5.
Lawmakers will get a chance to vote on concrete measures as the proposal unfolds. In the coming months, the authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, responsible for their own public health, will also relax controls.
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