Chris Whitty told Cabinet ‘open up as much as possible’ before winter
No time to lose, Boris! Tory MPs, businesses and teachers call on PM to ‘go quicker’ and axe crippling self-isolation rules and school bubbles BEFORE July 19 – as even Chris Whitty urges ‘open up for Summer because hospitals can cope’
- Chris Whitty told Cabinet ‘we should get as much open this summer as possible’
- He warned winter will be ‘more difficult’ but said to be ‘cautiously optimistic’
- Came as Government repeatedly stressed nation must learn to live with Covid
- Growing optimism that ‘freedom day’ on July 19 will now go ahead as planned
- Double-jabbed Brits will no longer have to self-isolate after positive contact
- Pupil bubbles in schools are to be scrapped in bid to keep students in classrooms
- Domestic vaccine passports will not be compulsory for major events in the UK
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Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to speed up the nation’s exit from lockdown as Tory MPs, businesses and teachers call on the Prime Minister to ‘go quicker’.
The PM said at PMQs at lunchtime that he ‘devoutly hopes’ that ‘freedom day’ will go ahead as planned on July 19.
He told MPs the UK’s vaccine rollout means ‘we have a higher wall of vaccination than virtually any other country in the world’ and that means the Government can proceed ‘with our cautious but we hope irreversible unlocking of the UK economy’.
However, the PM is facing demands to bring forward the easing of rules, especially after it emerged Chris Whitty backed the July 19 date, telling the Cabinet it should aim to ‘get as much open this summer as possible before winter’.
The Chief Medical Officer reportedly signalled his support for lifting the remaining coronavirus curbs next month as he briefed Cabinet ministers on Monday.
Mr Whitty said the winter period is likely to be ‘much more difficult’ but sources claimed he had been ‘cautiously optimistic’.
Anti-lockdown Tory MPs are adamant that the Government should have relaxed all remaining rules on the original June 21 date for the final stage of the PM’s lockdown exit roadmap.
One Conservative MP told MailOnline: ‘I think we should be going quicker. The data were good enough to open up completely on June 21 and nothing I have seen has shifted that opinion.
‘Most people are vaccinated now and those who are younger have a much lower risk of anything untoward happening. It is time to open up the economy. There are so many other harms that we have heard about, particularly for younger people.’
Another Tory MP echoed a similar sentiment as they said the data showed vaccines have ‘had the effect of breaking the link’ between infections and hospitalisations so the picture now looks ‘very positive’.
The Government has insisted delaying ‘freedom day’ to July 19 will give the vaccine rollout more time to administer life-saving jabs to all UK adults.
Ministers have struck a significantly more bullish tone in recent days on ending restrictions with senior Government figures stressing the nation must now learn to live with coronavirus.
Hopes of a return to normal life have further increased after it was revealed that ministers are set to shelve plans for the mandatory use of ‘Covid certification’ after July 19.
Meanwhile, it has been claimed that fully-vaccinated Brits will no longer have to self-isolate for 10 days after contact with a positive Covid case, with the quarantine requirement replaced with daily testing.
And in a third piece of good news, school ‘bubbles’ are to be scrapped in a bid to stop a surge in Covid-related pupil absences.
However, that change is not due to come into force until the start of the next school year in September.
Hospitality chiefs are calling on the Government to act now to improve the self-isolation policy to stop staff being taken out of action while teachers are also demanding a swifter change on the bubbles issue.
Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to speed up the nation’s exit from lockdown as Tory MPs, businesses and teachers call on the Prime Minister to ‘go quicker’
Chris Whitty has backed ‘freedom day’ going ahead on July 19 after it emerged he told the Cabinet it should aim to ‘get as much open this summer as possible before winter’
Fully-vaccinated Brits will no longer have to self-isolate for 10 days after contact with a positive Covid case after freedom day, with the quarantine requirement replaced with daily testing
Boris Johnson is planning to scrap school ‘bubbles’ in a bid to stop a surge in Covid-related pupil absences
Ministers are also set to shelve plans for the mandatory use of ‘Covid certification’ after July 19
Mr Whitty told a Cabinet briefing at the start of the week that the Government is on course to press ahead with lifting the remaining coronavirus restrictions on July 19, according to The Times.
Coronavirus case numbers continue to rise, but there has not been a corresponding leap in hospitalisations, prompting growing optimism that vaccinations have broken the link between infections and serious illness, paving the way for life to get back to normal.
A Cabinet source told the newspaper: ‘The view among the scientists was that we should get as much open this summer as possible before winter, which will be much more difficult. It was very encouraging.’
Another source said that the Chief Medical Officer had been ‘cautiously optimistic’.
It comes after a number of ministers have said the country will have to learn to live with the virus in the coming months and years in a marked change in Government tone.
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman yesterday compared the strategy to living with the flu which killed 22,000 people in England in 2017-18.
The spokesman told reporters: ‘Cabinet agreed that once we have completed the road map, we will be able to live with Covid in the future even if cases continue to rise, thanks to the protections provided by the vaccine.’
The change in Government tone has coincided with the appointment of Sajid Javid as Health Secretary as he replaced Matt Hancock following his resignation at the weekend.
Mr Javid is known to be more hawkish that his predecessor on the matter of lockdowns and restrictions and he said earlier this week that July 19 will be the ‘end of the line’ for curbs.
Statistics published yesterday showed there had been a fuether 20,479 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK.
The Government said a further 23 people had died within 28 days of testing positive, bringing the UK total to 128,126.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed there have been 153,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The easing of lockdown rules next month will include changing self-isolation rules for people who are fully-vaccinated, according to The Sun.
Double-jabbed Brits will no longer have to self-isolate for 10 days if they are pinged by NHS Test and Trace as a contact of a positive case.
Instead they will be asked to take daily lateral flow tests, providing a result in 20 minutes, with a negative test allowing them to leave the house.
The Government has been running a pilot since April replacing quarantine with testing and ministers are now expected to rollout the policy across the nation.
Hospitality bosses are pushing for the Government to change to the testing system immediately because pubs and restaurants already hit by severe labour shortages are being forced to close due to staff being told to self-isolate by the NHS Covid app.
They want the test and release scheme to be rolled out now to relieve the crisis, which last week saw 46 members of staff at a Wetherspoons in Weston-super-Mare forced to stay at home after coming into contact with positive cases.
Small business are suffering the worst financial jeopardy, with one restaurant in Liverpool revealing it lost a quarter of its workforce over the weekend on top of an existing labour shortage caused by Brexit and employees quitting over lockdown.
The nature of the NHS Covid app – which tells people to self-isolate if they have come within a certain distance of someone who later tests positive – means hospitality staff moving round busy venues are particularly likely to be pinged.
Industry body UK Hospitality is calling on the Government to change the rules so staff can return to work after a negative test.
Dave Critchley, executive chef and director at Lu Ban restaurant and bar in Liverpool, told MailOnline: ‘We lost five people over the weekend at minimal notice after they were pinged by the app.
‘When you are only a small business anyway losing five members of staff meant we had lost a quarter of our workforce.
Just one in 100 NHS beds are currently being taken up by Covid patients in England — fourteen times fewer than at the start of the second wave. Graph shows: The percentage of all hospital beds available to the NHS being taken up by Covid patients on June 22 this year (red bars) compared to on December 14 (blue bars), the last time infections were above 20,000 and rising
The rate of growth in hospital admissions has been falling for the last nine days, despite hospitalisations continuing to rise
‘It was already a monumental task to take on this year to make up all the money we lost from last year because we’ve still got last year’s rent and bills to pay.
Meanwhile, Covid passports will not be compulsory at music festivals, sports events and other mass gatherings when lockdown restrictions are lifted next month.
Ministers are set to shelve plans for the mandatory use of ‘Covid certification’ after ‘freedom day’.
Plans for pubs and restaurants had already been put on the backburner following a backlash from MPs and the hospitality sector.
It has now been revealed that ministers have also dropped the idea of imposing them on mass events.
Organisers will, however, be permitted to run their own schemes, with the Premier League among those expected to introduce some form of certification to prove those attending football grounds do not pose a Covid risk.
Separately, the Government has all but confirmed that school ‘bubbles’ will be scrapped from September, with pupils tested daily instead.
The bubbles policy has faced fierce criticism in recent days because it requires pupils to self-isolate if one of their peers tests positives for Covid-19.
That has caused entire year groups to have to miss lessons, causing massive disruption to the school year.
Statistics published yesterday showed the number of children away from school has quadrupled in a month.
Last Thursday more than 375,000 – or one in 20 – was at home because of the virus.
The vast majority were isolating because they were part of a bubble with an infected classmate.
Last night ministers said they would look at scrapping the current rules in time for the autumn term.
They are examining plans to abandon or water down the bubble system and replace it with a system of daily testing so pupils don’t have to isolate unless they are positive.
With the number of absences spiralling every week, some critics believe the Government should act now.
But with just three weeks left of the school year, and with the final stage of unlocking not due before July 19, the changes are unlikely to be enacted until the autumn.
However, teachers are set to revolt over the plans, with unions describing the prospect of on-site testing centres as ‘something akin to field hospitals’.
In further good news, the UK’s NHS vaccination app is reportedly ready to be integrated with the EU’s version in a move which would pave the way for easier travel to Europe.
The app shows vaccination status, test status and whether someone has tested positive in the past 180 days.
Britain and Brussels are currently in discussions focused on mutually recognising each other’s apps.
Should the NHS app be fully recognised on the continent alongside the EU’s ‘green pass’ it should open up more quarantine-free holiday destinations for Brits.
A senior industry source told The Telegraph: ‘We are technically ready to be integrated into the EU database that will recognise your digital NHS signature and allow you to demonstrate your Covid status.
‘There are some glitches with private test providers struggling to register their tests quickly enough but once those are resolved, all that is required is for the EU to allow non-EU countries to be integrated.’
