PLANS to remove all legal coronavirus restrictions in England this month are expected to be announced later today.
Boris Johnson will set out the plans in a news conference with UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid announcing the plans to parliament beforehand.
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The Prime Minister is expected to stress that the coronavirus is something that people will have to "learn to live with" and that while hospitalisations, serious illness and deaths will continue, he will urge people to get vaccinated
What is Boris Johnson going to announce?
The Prime Minister will announce the relaxation of all legal Covid rules in England from July 19 at a press conference this afternoon at 5pm. Health Secretary Javid will announce the changes to the House of Commons around the same time.
The news that the planned easing was expected to go ahead was reported yesterday with mask-wearing to become voluntary in most places, the one metre-plus social distancing rule to be dropped and house parties to be allowed again.
These changes are described as step four in the UK's roadmap out of lockdown and the changes will be confirmed on Monday, July 12 if the Goverment's "four tests" for easing restrictions are met.
These tests are:
- Vaccine programme continuing successfully
- Evidence shows vaccines reduce hospitalisations and deaths
- Infection rates do not risk putting the NHS under unsustainable pressure
- New variants of concern do not change the risk
Findings from a social distancing and coronavirus certification review will also be published. The review is to give businesses clarity on Covid rules ahead of restrictions easing.
READ MORE: Expert says mask-wearing is 'extremely valuable' as Tory minister to ditch his
Johnson is expected to say: “Thanks to the successful rollout of our vaccination program, we are progressing cautiously through our roadmap.
"Today we will set out how we can restore people’s freedoms when we reach step four. But I must stress that the pandemic is not over and that cases will continue to rise over the coming weeks.
"As we begin to learn to live with this virus, we must all continue to carefully manage the risks from Covid and exercise judgment when going about our lives.”
What's happening in Scotland?
In Scotland, there has been no announcement of changes to the country's route out of Covid restrictions.
It is hoped that by July 19 all areas will move to Level 0 of the Scottish Government's five-tier system and all restrictions will be dropped by August 9.
Level 0 still carries some restrictions on issues such as mask-wearing and social distancing.
In the most recent daily figures, there were 2726 new Covid cases identified in a 24 hour period, accounting for 11.4% of the total number of tests.
The number of deaths of patients who tested positive within 28 days remains at 7729.
There have been 3,857,584 people who have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 2,762,156 have received their second dose.
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