Boris Johnson is sketching out a blueprint which enables Britons to go back to work by May 26 while stopping a second spike in coronavirus infections, government sources revealed last night.
A loosening of certain restrictions designed to fire up the flagging economy will be accompanied with a roll-out of revamped social distancing guidelines, particularly on public transport.
Government insiders claimed that under the plans commuters will be instructed to check their temperature before travelling into work to stop train carriages becoming contamination hotbeds.
It will include train passengers having to stick to the time slot they have booked to avoid carriages becoming rammed in rush hours, according to the Times.
Downing Street’s scientific advisory group SAGE has been asked to urgently review the current proximity guidelines and one minister told the Daily Telegraph the issue was a ‘live discussion’.
The measures will also try to allay the cautious public’s ‘coronaphobia’ after polls showed opinion overwhelmingly weighing in behind extending the lockdown.
A new YouGov poll of 3,152 adults revealed that 77 per cent would like to see the lockdown continue while just 15 per cent are opposed to the move.
Some 46 per cent of those surveyed said they would ‘strongly support’ the decision to extend the lockdown while 31 per cent said they would ‘somewhat support’ an extension. Just 8 per cent said they did not know.
The Prime Minister, who yesterday urged the country to display ‘collective discipline’, will spell out his road map next week when the restrictions are reviewed.
But ministers eager to cajole UK plc back to work are mulling plans to relax social distancing in workplaces, including scrapping the six-foot rule.
YouGov asked 3,152 British adults: The next government lockdown review is on May 7. Would you support or oppose extending the current lockdown beyond 7th May?
Ipsos MORI polling has suggested 61 per cent of Britons would be nervous about going out to bars and restaurants even if the draconian restrictions are loosened
Members of the public follow social distancing guidelines and queue in the car park of B&Q in Solihull this morning
Members of the public follow social distancing guidelines and queue outside a Homebase store in Leicester, after the firm opened its doors to customers for the first time in more than a month today
Overhauling this current six-foot guideline could also tip the balance to allow schools to return by the middle of June.
Mr Johnson on Thursday offered a glimmer of hope as he revealed the UK is past the peak of the virus and on ‘the downward slope’.
Sources said the cabinet is working towards the last week of May as the earliest point to begin these baby steps out of lockdown.
‘You won’t find anybody who thinks it will be any earlier than that,’ a senior government figure told the Sun, adding the date was ‘our best hope’.
When restrictions are eased experts will monitor how different parts of the country are complying and may put individual towns and cities back on lockdown if the re-infection rate, or R, creeps above 1 again.
The cabinet has drawn up a five-pronged criteria which must be met before any changes to the lockdown can be considered.
Mr Johnson said the most crucial of these is the confidence that any lifting of restrictions will not trigger a second wave of cases which threatens to overwhelm the NHS.
One of the obstacles government officials are trying to overcome is preventing the spread of infection on public transport, which are typically crammed, especially in London.
As well as mulling plans to ask commuters to take their temperature – a fever is common symptom of Covid-19 – they will also make passengers obey rigid timeslots.
An industry source told the Times: ‘There is emerging thinking that you may have to book a slot for, say, 8.30 to 8.45am and then turn up at that time and you’ll be able to get on a train.’
Meanwhile Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is hammering out separate plans to encourage people to walk and cycle rather than using the Tube to stop overcrowding.
But ministers are simultaneously urging the government’s scientists to review whether the six-foot rule could be relaxed.
One minister told the Telegraph: ‘This is not about weakening the rules but it is about trying to test if it is actually necessary to be six feet. What is the empirical evidence on this?’
As the government ramped up preparations to get Britain moving again:
- The UK has today announced 739 more coronavirus deaths, taking Britain’s official fatality toll to 27,180;
- A top midwife has warned coronavirus could lead to a surge in baby deaths because women enduring a difficult pregnancy are afraid to go to hospitals;
- Ministers are facing demands to push for South Korea-style contact tracing after Matt Hancock declared the 100,000 a day target for coronavirus tests has been met;
- There are claims a deadline of the end of the month is being set for full contact tracing to be in place – but that is later than the mid-May timetable previously mooted;
- Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has accused Mr Johnson of being ‘slow at every turn’ in the response to the crisis and demanded an exit strategy from lockdown as soon as possible;
- Experts said it was ‘perfectly reasonable’ for the UK to start easing lockdown before a contact tracing regime is fully in place’;
- Ryanair has announced 3,000 job cuts as it revealed it expects to operate under 1 per cent of its schedule between April and June;
- Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye has warned that social distancing at airports is ‘physically impossible’;
- The ONS has published local breakdowns of coronavirus-related deaths suggesting deprived areas with high BAME populations are most at risk.
Despite Health Secretary Matt Hancock this week insisting ‘we’re all in this together’, officials are also mooting the possibility of keeping measures clamped down in coronavirus hotspots.
A senior Government source said: ‘There is a desire to do this nationally, but once we start lifting restrictions we will want to be able to see if there is an outburst say in Leicester – all of a sudden loads of people getting coronavirus.
‘To get that under control, if you have a flashpoint, you have got to put out the fire in a particular place. Instead of putting everyone in the country into lockdown again you would want to target [an area].’
One Cabinet minister said: ‘A lot of the focus now is about giving people the confidence to go back to work.’
Department for Transport ministers are working with SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) to avoid the return to work mirroring chaotic scenes on public transport Britain saw at the beginning of lockdown.
No decisions have yet been taken, but with Britain losing £2billion from its GDP everyday the nation remains on shutdown, it could be on the cards when the situation is re-visited next week.
Staff working every other week, wearing PPE in canteens, and face coverings on public transport are among other option being mooted to help reduce the risks.
The UK population appears to be among the most anxious in the world about coronavirus, with more than a quarter saying lockdown should not be eased even if the PM’s ‘five tests’ are met.
There are reports that some people who have returned to work have been getting abuse from neighbours who believe they are threatening their safety.
Ministers have admitted they must win over the public to a more ‘nuanced’ message, with advisers saying the stark ‘stay at home’ warning might have been too successful over the past six weeks.
A loosening of certain restrictions designed to fire up the flagging economy will be accompanied with a roll-out of revamped social distancing guidelines, particularly on public transport
Levels of transport activity among the public have plunged since lockdown – although there has been a slight uptick over recent days
The virus cannot survive if the reproduction rate – known as the R number – remains below one. Some countries that have lifted their locdowns are seeing the R number increas. Restrictions in Germany were relaxed after the infection rate fell under 1.0 – meaning each person is infecting less than one other – as opposed to each infecting up five or six people. The R rate is now rising slightly again
The rate of coronavirus infection in Denmark has increased since schools and kindergartens were re-opened, new figures have revealed. Analysis by Denmark’s infectious diseases agency the State Serum Institute (SSI) found the reproduction rate, known as ‘R’, rose since schools opened on April 15 as the virus lockdown was eased. According to the data, the ‘R rate’ increased from 0.6 in mid-April to 0.9 as of yesterday.
A separate YouGov poll also revealed today that Britons are no longer planning to holiday following the coronavirus lockdown. Some 36 per cent said they were planning a trip but are no longer doing so.
Separate polling has also suggested 61 per cent of Britons would be nervous about going out to bars and restaurants even if the draconian restrictions are loosened.
Statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a government adviser, said today that the ‘social distancing’ communications strategy had worked too well.
‘It’s much harder to frighten to people to stay at home than it is to reassure them they can go out again,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
One of Britain’s richest businessmen worth £141million launches legal challenge to the coronavirus lockdown
Millionaire aviation tycoon Simon Dolan, pictured in 2011 with his wife Sabrina Simon
A Monaco-based aviation tycoon worth £141million is suing the government over the Covid-19 lockdown describing it as ‘draconian’ and ‘wrecking the economy’.
Simon Dolan, 50, who owns aircraft charter business Jota Aviation has put Health Secretary Matt Hancock on notice of his intention to sue the government, claiming the lockdown measures are breaching human rights.
The firm, which has a contract to deliver PPE to the NHS, is based at Southend Airport. As well as cargo flights, it does VIP transport and charters.
The threatened judicial review claims the government’s ongoing lockdown will kill more people than it will save by preventing the spread of Covid-19.
Mr Dolan has instructed Wedlake Bell to initiate the proceedings.
According to the 22-page legal letter sent to Matt Hancock: ‘We represent Simon Dolan, an entrepreneur who owns fully or partially 10 UK businesses which combined employ a total of around 600 people.
‘His company, Jota Aviation has in recent weeks made numerous flights to transport vital PPE equipment for NHS healthcare professionals and to repatriate British people stranded abroad, as well as flying daily for the Italian Post Office to help keep their goods moving.’
Mr Dolan told The Guardian: ‘The lockdown is telling us to stop living to avoid dying. To imprison people in their homes is an extremely dramatic decision to make. It is unprecedented and it would have been a brave Boris to say “no, we are not going to do that”, but it has gone on too long now, and we need to lift it or loosen it.’
‘Maybe our whole campaign has been, if anything, slightly too successful.’
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick admitted that getting UK plc back on its feet would require the public accepting a more ‘nuanced’ message.
He said that sectors such as housing and construction ‘on the whole’ could go back to work now as the majority was done outside and could be carried out in accordance with social distancing.
‘I think we are, at the moment, where the country can take a message that is slightly nuanced and saying ‘this is what you need to do today, but this is what the future looks like so that you and your family can start to prepare’.’
In response to Mr Johnson’s optimism that the UK economy would ‘bounce back’ following the pandemic, Mr Jenrick said he too was confident.
‘The fundamentals of the British economy remain sound,’ he said.
When the lockdown is lifted will depend on the reproduction number of the virus – known as the R value – which will then influence when lockdown measures can begin to lift.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday confirmed that the R is now lower than 1, meaning the virus is spreading slower than one-to-one and the outbreak is on course to come to a natural end.
At the start of the outbreak in the UK the R rate had been between 2.4 and 4, scientists say, but the dramatic stay-at-home measures that came into place on March 23 have cut it by at least two thirds.
The virus cannot survive if the R remains below one, and the Government must now scale up its testing and surveillance to make sure it is never allowed to rise above that number again.
However countries that have lifted their lockdowns including Germany and Denmark have started to see their R number rise again
Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford said the government will need to ‘take people with us’.
‘As we move to open up things again, we will be careful and cautious, we will have to take people with us,’ he said.
‘Our efforts over the last week have been directed at working with our trade unions, our local authorities and other stakeholders because you can open up anything you like, but if people don’t think it’s safe to take up what is now available to them, they won’t come.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Johnson of being ‘slow, slow at every turn’.
He told the Evening Standard: ‘It looks like we are going to be slow on the exit strategy because we are now behind quite a lot of countries in Europe and behind Scotland and Wales.’
According to Ipsos MORI research conducted earlier this week, 61 per cent of the public would be uncomfortable about going out to bars and restaurants or using public transport if lockdown was eased next month.
Just 22 per cent of those aged 55 to 75 would be happy going out to pubs or to eat.
A third would be concerned about going out to meet friends or family.
Just over half – 51 per cent – would be at ease with shopping in a supermarket while 49 per cent would be comfortable in other shops.
The latest slides released at the daily Downing Street briefing show the number of hospital cases easing slowly again
Some 48 per cent voiced anxiety about sending their children back to school, and a third would be nervous going back to school.
Two-thirds – 67 per cent – would be uncomfortable going to large public gatherings, such as sports or concerts.
David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy on Covid-19, said it would be ‘perfectly reasonable’ for the UK to start easing the lockdown before a full contact tracing system is up and running.
‘Every government is having to make a choice and I understand that the contact tracing process is now well advanced and so that’s a reasonable time to be thinking through how lockdown can be eased, and it won’t be eased all at once, it will be eased bit by bit,’ he told Today.
He added: ‘You don’t need to have 100 per cent contact tracing in order to get the R-number down. The contact tracing is an absolutely essential part of reducing transmission, and getting that capacity as widely spread as possible is key to getting the transmission as low as you can.
‘But you certainly can release the lockdown while you’re building up the case finding and contact tracing capacity – that’s what most other countries are doing.
‘They don’t wait until everything is ready and so it’s perfectly reasonable for Britain to be thinking through these options and working our how it’s going to do the next steps.’
Heading his first Downing Street briefing since falling ill last night, the Prime Minister said the UK is now on the ‘downward slope’ and praised Britons for having avoided an ‘uncontrollable and catastrophic’ epidemic.
But Mr Johnson dashed hopes of an imminent loosening, after making clear that a new flare-up of the deadly disease would be worse than the current crippling impact on the economy.
He claimed that efforts to bolster the NHS had avoided a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ of 500,000 deaths if no action to combat the pandemic had been taken, likening it to digging a tunnel under an alpine mountain.
But in the strongest hint yet that restrictions will run into June and beyond, he added: ‘It is vital that we do not now lose control and run slap into a second and even bigger mountain.’
The premier said a ‘huge amount of work’ was going into an ‘exit strategy’ with the first draft to be published next week. While it will offer a ‘road map, a menu of options’ for how the curbs could be eased in future, he cautioned that it would not give any timings as they would depend on the science.
He gave a strong hint that it will involve advising people to wear face coverings in some circumstances, saying they ‘will be useful’ as the situation evolves.
Mr Johnson also said he was ‘not going to pretend’ the government had not made any mistakes in the handling of the crisis, pointing to PPE supplies. He admitted they were learning lessons every day.
The tough message came as Mr Johnson put the ‘R’ number – the reproduction rate of the virus – at the heart of the battle. He insisted nothing can be done that lets it rise above one, which would mean the outbreak was growing again.
Scientific adviser Patrick Vallance told the briefing that he believed the R was currently between 0.6 and 0.9 across the country.
YouGov also asked 3152 British adults: Are you planning on going on holiday abroad this year?
Meanwhile, ministers are facing demands to spell out their advice on face coverings after Boris Johnson said they would be ‘useful’ as lockdown ends.
Nicola Sturgeon has already urged Scots to don home-made masks – but not medical-grade ones – in shops and on public transport.
But the UK government has so far refused to change its position, having previously said it did not recommend wearing coverings.
Sources told MailOnline that the PM is believed to favour issuing stronger advice, but there has been resistance from the Department of Health amid fears of shortages.
In a round of broadcast interviews today, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick admitted that although the benefits of wearing medical face masks was ‘modest,’ wearing them in public may give the public confidence to return to their daily lives.
‘The advice in the past has been that face masks have only quite a modest difference from a health perspective, they do help us to protect others, and it might be particularly useful if you’re asymptomatic so you don’t know if you’ve got symptoms but you could still be spreading the virus,’ he told the BBC.
‘The benefits are modest but they might be a way of giving people confidence because many people are understandably very anxious about going out, about returning to the workplace in a safe way.’
He added that more details would be released in the Government ‘road map’ next week.
Mr Jenrick continued: ‘It’s a personal choice, if you have a face mask it’s your choice whether you want to use them and if you walk around some of our towns and cities today you are seeing more people using them than ever before.
‘The advice today is that the difference made by a face covering is quite modest – it doesn’t make a huge difference but it does make some. So it’s your choice.’
Research by YouGov for the Times found 28 per cent want the lockdown to stay in full even if the conditions set for starting to return to normal life are met
Ministers warn lockdown could stay for MONTHS until new cases drop to the hundreds – as Prof Chris Whitty says a second peak this winter could be WORSE than the first
Ministers have warned lockdown may need to remain in place for months until the number of new cases falls below 1,000 per day after Professor Chris Whitty raised the spectre of a second peak far worse than the first.
The total number of new coronavirus deaths in all settings was 674 on Thursday, down from 765 the previous day, but there was a leap in the number of new cases to 6,032 from 4,076 on the day before.
Although this was in part down to increased testing, ministers say they want daily infections down to the hundreds before any easing of the lockdown, The Daily Telegraph reported. Britain has not been down in the hundreds since March 23.
In his first Downing Street briefing since leaving intensive care, Boris Johnson said he would outline a ‘menu of options’ next week for how the UK could roll off the peak which he said we had past.
Professor Chris Whitty said yesterday that eradication of the coronavirus is ‘technically impossible’ and a second wave this winter could be more severe than the first.
England’s chief medical officer warned: ‘It’s not just in Game Of Thrones that winter is always coming … the winter is always worse than summer, spring and autumn for health services.’
Although Boris Johnson told yesterday’s Downing Street briefing that Britain was ‘past the peak,’ Prof. Whitty said if the ‘R’ (reproductive rate) of the virus was not kept below one then we were bound for another vicious tsunami of the contagion.
Every country seeking to ease lockdown measures now must negotiate an ‘extremely difficult balancing act’ to keep the pandemic under control, Prof. Whitty said in an online Gresham College lecture.
Prof Whitty said: ‘We need to make sure that R does not go back above one. Because if not we will go back to a second wave. It is entirely plausible for a second wave to actually be more severe than the first if it is not mitigated.
‘Every country has got an extremely difficult balancing act, and we all need to be honest about the fact there are no easy solutions here. Covid-19 is a very long way from finished and eradication is technically impossible for this disease.’
Outlining several key unknowns about coronavirus, Prof Whitty highlighted seasonality, saying: ‘There may be a seasonal element to this, we don’t know, it’s too early with this virus.’
He went on: ‘It’s not just in Game Of Thrones that winter is always coming – it is also true in every health service.
‘It may be that there’s a seasonal element and if so, for most respiratory viruses, they are more likely to be transmitted, there is a higher likelihood of transmission, in the winter.
‘The winter is always worse than summer, spring and autumn for health services, and we need to think about this in terms of how we come out for the next phase.’
However, he added social distancing measures are likely to reduce rates of flu and other respiratory illnesses when winter arrives.
Body temperature drones, immunity passports, no cash allowed and Brexit postponed: JONATHAN MAYO imagines ‘the new normal’ one year after Britain emerges from lockdown
Next week Boris Johnson will present his exit strategy, but with Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty warning that without a coronavirus vaccine it is ‘wholly unrealistic’ to expect to return to normal soon, what might life after lockdown actually look like? Drawing on scientific predictions and the experiences of countries emerging from isolation, JONATHAN MAYO imagines the ‘new normal’…
Some 12 challenging months have passed since coronavirus hit Britain, and it’s the start of a new day in what is now known as the AC (After-Covid) era.
As the sun rises, the Amazon drones are heading back to base having delivered packages containing a vast range of goods and foodstuffs to tens of thousands of households nationwide.
The drones are permitted to fly during darkness only, because at dawn the first NHS Pandemic Drones of the day (the so-called ‘Flying Doctors’) take off. Originally trialled in the U.S. and Australia after the first wave of infection, they were introduced here in autumn 2020.
These drones can monitor people’s temperature from 200ft up and relay information about heart and breathing rates to drone controllers looking for possible Covid-19 sufferers, so they can be isolated and their contacts traced.
The Full Lockdown initiated in March 2020 by Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been, after a grim two months of death and devastating economic fallout, eased from early June.
A phased return to school for children began, and many businesses, shops, garden centres and gyms re-opened — with strict social distancing observed.
By July, those restaurants, bars, pubs, cafes and hair and beauty salons which hadn’t folded, were able to welcome customers, but with restrictions on numbers.
And by September, as new cases fell to single figures, the ‘two-metre rule’ was relaxed, although face masks were still compulsory. Life had begun to return to some semblance of BC (Before Covid) normality.
Some 12 challenging months have passed since coronavirus hit Britain, and it’s the start of a new day in what is now known as the AC (After-Covid) era. Pictured: Shoppers in Fleet, Hampshire on Tuesday
Then, in mid-October, the virus returned in a devastating second wave — just like the Spanish Flu a century before.
Strict social distancing was back and a ‘partial lockdown’ instigated — and then the Pandemic Drones were deployed.
Now they share airspace with police drones which monitor public spaces and areas that have seen outbreaks of civil unrest — mainly unemployed youths — and gang violence.
If drone operators spot gatherings of more than three people or other rule-flouting, they activate a recorded message broadcast from the drone, with police back-up if required.
The second wave peaked in December in the UK, with a phased return to work beginning in February. Such is the new normal in the AC era. This morning, news bulletins lead with reports that a Covid-19 vaccine is to be introduced. Britons won’t be holding their breath: there have been many false dawns as scientists worldwide try to conquer this plague.
Newspapers, meanwhile, are full of the developments in the U.S. election campaign. Due to have taken place in November 2020, the election was postponed when the second wave hit the U.S.
The death rate now stands some way north of 300,000, and Donald Trump has taken a battering for his decision to end lockdown early, the economic catastrophe that followed, and because the U.S. healthcare system failed millions.
Black Americans and hardcore Trump supporters with no health insurance have suffered disproportionately. Now the idea of a U.S. National Health Service dominates live TV debates between Trump and his surprise new Democratic rival, Andrew Cuomo. (The former governor of New York was hailed for his management of the outbreak, and was the popular choice after official nominee Joe Biden was struck down by coronavirus and withdrew.)
As the daily commute begins, thousands travel on the newly nationalised railway and bus services. Many private public transport firms went bust during lockdown as revenue from fares dried up.
Train and Tube operators have added extra carriages to boost social distancing, and standing room is minimal. Facemasks are ‘strongly recommended’ but not compulsory.
In the wake of lockdown, during which millions of people worked from home (WFH), Barclays CEO Jes Staley famously predicted the end of the ‘big office’. It’s true that many of the skyscrapers at London’s Canary Wharf are now empty, but tens of thousands of employees have resumed working in reconfigured offices with desks at least two metres apart.
All work locations (and shops above a certain square footage) are required to have heat-sensing cameras at the entrance. Anyone with a raised temperature is refused entry and sent to a Covid-19 testing site or to one of the many mobile units.
Flexible working is common and many have opted to WFH permanently, moving to cheaper, larger houses in rural areas, and triggering a collapse in city centre house prices, especially in London.
The commuters who travel as they did BC look rather different. Another legacy of the lockdown is the dress code.
People dress as they did when WFH, and trainers and jeans are prevalent. (For women who still choose to dress up for meetings, routinely conducted by video now, the internet conferencing company Zoom — now worth hundreds of billions of pounds — has produced its own range of ‘tops’). In general, though, clothes-shopping has gone out of fashion.
During lockdown women pared down their wardrobes and curbed their spending, and the habit seems to have stuck.
This hasn’t helped the few surviving High Street stores such as Zara, Primark and Next.
When it comes to grooming, there’s a trend for longer hair for both men and women. Unable to get to salons and barber shops during Full Lockdown, and still fearful of the risks posed by the proximity of a hairdresser, people have embraced a shaggier look. And many women are going grey, which is now seen as rather chic.
And, of course, nearly everyone wears a face mask; some paper, some high-tech, some with designer logos, while schools provide them in the school colours.
Nationally, the domestic production of PPE (personal protective equipment) — from face masks and visors to full hazmat gear — to boost imported kit, remains a priority because of fears of a third deadly wave that would swamp the NHS. (The Nightingale Hospitals remain on ‘Covid-19’ standby but are now being used to shift the huge backlog of routine operations cancelled during both waves of infection.)
Safe-guarding the NHS was the reason for one of the more controversial government policies — the ‘Immunity Passport’ scheme. Anyone who has antibodies to the Covid-19 virus — and is therefore probably immune — qualifies for one of these, which is delivered to their smartphone. Those without mobiles are issued with a credit card-sized pass, labelled ‘V-Free’, instead.
The immunity scheme grants holders access to football grounds, theatres and cinemas. All such venues have reduced capacity and allocate seating with a minimum of two empty seats either side, in front and behind.
As travel firms struggle to generate business, hotels, B&Bs, and cruise companies (trips will resume from September 2021) will take bookings only from individuals with an Immunity Passport.
Airlines — now nationalised — are offering a limited number of international flights. Many have removed the middle seats from planes and installed plastic hoods on headrests. They no longer carry passengers over 65 or anyone with underlying health problems. Apps have become a vital tool in the fight against coronavirus. One of the most popular tells you if your bus or train has too many people on board, putting you at risk. Another more sophisticated app can warn how many people around you have had coronavirus, with whom they have been in contact, and where they have been.
The immunity scheme grants holders access to football grounds, theatres and cinemas. All such venues have reduced capacity and allocate seating with a minimum of two empty seats either side, in front and behind (pictured at the OSK Brestsky Stadium, Brest, Belarus on April 12)
It enables epidemiologists to track the progress of the virus and predict its spread. Millions of Britons have welcomed it as a means of safeguarding themselves and others, despite concern over privacy issues and data collection.
Overall, Britain is a much quieter country, with a growing movement of people who call themselves ‘Lockdowners’ — those reluctant to risk venturing too far because they’ve not yet had coronavirus.
With unemployment levels so high — a fifth of the population — civil unrest is a constant issue. There is also concern that society is becoming divided between those with Immunity Passports and the Lockdowners, while ‘grey apartheid’ describes the continuing isolation of millions of elderly people from family and friends.
While most Britons still greet each other with a friendly nod, they have not shaken hands for more than a year.
As the morning goes on, people patiently queue outside shops on the now-fading yellow social distancing marks.
Supermarkets continue to do good business, but Britons have got into the habit of having food (and everything else) delivered.
The result has been the closure of thousands of retail outlets, while restaurants and bars continue to suffer from the reluctance to socialise. The ‘delivery-based economy’ is a buzzword for most politicians.
That economy is largely contactless (money is perceived as an infection risk) and cashless, with the withdrawal by the Bank of England of smaller denominations.
For those in work, albeit on reduced salaries, job security is a thing of the past. The TUC worries that robots (which don’t catch coronavirus) will increasingly be deployed by manufacturers, leading to further layoffs. Food banks and Universal Credit are now a way of life for many middle-class families.
The political landscape has changed dramatically. The Conservatives are pursuing economic policies inconceivable just 18 months ago, and government intervention on a massive scale looks set to stay. Labour is finding it hard to land a blow in this area.
Boris Johnson remains popular but there is pressure from the new Tory constituencies in the North for investment because, according to one critic, ‘the Government’s multi-billion rescue package proved that the magic money tree was there all along’.
The Brexit trade deal, scheduled to be in place by December 31, 2020, has been extended by a year after video negotiations proved slow and unproductive.
At the height of the Full Lockdown, the number of cars on the roads dropped to levels last seen in 1955. The figure has risen, but pollution is below 2020 levels and scientists report significant air quality improvement across Europe and Asia. Whether the pandemic has had an effect on climate change has yet to be established, but the environmental movement was boosted by the outbreak. The enforced isolation has resulted in an appreciation for a simpler life, as well as for the natural world.
Many congregations able to worship together during lockdown only using video conferencing have installed permanent cameras in churches so services can be relayed to their new online audience.
The most successful innovation of 2021 has been the revival of the drive-thru. Fast-food companies have been joined by drive-thru garden centres, drive-thru DIY stores and drive-thru supermarkets.
The first drive-thru cinemas since the 1950s are due to open in a few weeks. Movie production worldwide has yet to return to normal, so only classic films will be shown.
On a brighter note, seaside resorts are preparing for their first influx of visitors since spring 2020. With foreign air travel severely restricted, ‘staycation’ holidays are the only real option for most.
As this will lead to overcrowding in some areas, the Government has unveiled a new holiday policy effective from July. They have revived the Victorian custom called ‘wakes week’ when whole towns or factories took holidays on allocated weeks. In 2021, this will be done county by county.
The order was decided in a televised lottery draw made by Boris Johnson. The lucky people of Essex are going on holiday first.
In preparation, councils responsible for the most popular British beaches have followed Italy’s lead and are installing plastic cubicles (with space for two loungers and a beach umbrella) to keep sunbathers apart. Lifeguards will enforce social distancing in the water.
Elsewhere, plastic screens have become a common sight — between tables in restaurants, in mini-cabs between driver and passengers and, of course, in shops to shield staff from customers.
As evening falls, the nation gathers around laptops and televisions. The TV schedules look very different from 2020. Gritty dramas, especially those set in hospitals, are out of favour (Casualty and Holby City were axed last year). Instead, it is all comedies and light entertainment, with David Jason tempted out of retirement to star in a revival of Only Fools And Horses.
As for socialising, staying in is the new going out. Online dating rocketed during lockdown and remains popular. However, casual hook-ups are perceived as high risk for infection, so chats online and by phone are the norm in early courtship. In an uncertain world, there is a trend to forge serious relationships rather than brief liaisons.
And then, of course, there’s the lockdown Baby Boom! In the past few months, maternity units have been busy delivering the generation dubbed ‘Coronials’. Florence (as in Nightingale) and Joe (as in the nation’s PE teacher, Joe Wicks) are the most popular names.
Sadly, Full Lockdown also brought simmering tensions to the boil and the courts are processing a record number of divorces.
Looking to the future, Britons are desperate for something to celebrate — and they won’t be disappointed. Preparations are underway to mark Prince Philip’s 100th birthday in June, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are to make their first trip to Britain since early 2020 to join the celebrations — and to introduce their own ‘Coronial’, baby Diana, a sister for Archie.
Around the country, street parties are being organised — with tables spaced safely apart. It’s hoped that the Prince’s birthday will help us all move forward in our Brave New AC World.