Boris Johnson has announced the easing of Plan B restrictions in England today, following reports that all current restrictions could be phased out by March 2022.
This means that restrictions including the use of masks in shops and on public transport, work from home guidance and more will no longer be applicable from next Thursday, 27 January.
The requirement for secondary school-age children to wear masks in class will also be dropped from this Thursday, 20 January.
Covid passports will also be scrapped.
The news follows a week to forget for the Prime Minister, who faced a tough PMQ’s this afternoon following further party gate allegations and the defection of a North West Conservative MP to the Labour benches on Wednesday.
The MP in question said that Johnson was ‘incapable of leadership’ in a scurrilous letter, however, at PMQ’s the Prime Minister did not even seem aware that the MP had deserted for the opposite benches.
For the first time this week, numbers of Covid infections have started to fall in most parts of England following some record-breaking numbers of hospitalisations and deaths over the Christmas period.
Plan B measures were introduced in England back in mid December 2021 in a bid to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
Those measures were:
- Guidance to work from home “if you can”.
- The reintroduction of a legal requirement to wear face masks in “most public indoor venues”, including theatres and cinemas – with exceptions “where it’s not practical, including while eating, drinking, exercising or singing”.
- NHS COVID passes for nightclubs, unseated indoor venues with more than 500 people, unseated outdoor venues with more than 4,000 people, and any venue with more than 10,000 people.
- Daily testing for people identified as a contact of a COVID-19 case – with isolation required only for people who test positive.
Although several changes have been made while Plan B restrictions still stood – particularly with reference to testing and the duration of isolation periods – it was announced at the time that these measures would expire on 26 January, and the government committed to reviewing them either on or before this date.
Featured Image – Parliament TV
