Minister says now is ‘the best time’ to lift COVID rules

Watch: Vaccine Minister says now is ‘the best time’ to lift COVID rules

Now is “the best time” to lift coronavirus restrictions in England, the Vaccines minister said.

Nadhim Zahawi was speaking as the country woke up to the so-called ‘Freedom Day’ on July 19, when most mandatory COVID-19 rules are removed.

He insisted the government was “doing the right thing” despite the UK’s current number of cases of 50,000 a day and warnings from scientists that they could soon reach 200,000.

He told Sky News on Monday: “This is a step forward, an important step forward – there is no perfect time to take this step, it is as good a time as any other. , as (Professor) Chris Whitty said, with the summer holidays and schools being closed, which will hopefully take a toll on the R-number, the transition rate. “

He added: “So I have no doubts that we are doing the right thing.

“I think the immunization program has allowed us to take that step, to do it cautiously with this adult wall of protection in the UK.

“Our border controls remain in place, our expectation and recommendation that people in crowded places continue to wear masks and take personal and corporate responsibility, and it’s great to see TfL (Transport for London) and others do. “

Face masks will be recommended in some spaces from Monday but are no longer a legal requirement.

However, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said face masks would remain mandatory on the capital’s transport network, while supermarkets would continue to ask customers to wear them.

Zahawi said, “We have to be careful, we have to stay vigilant. “

This echoed the sentiments of Boris Johnson, who said in a video on Twitter on Sunday that the country should proceed “cautiously”.

Johnson said: “If we don’t do it now, we have to ask ourselves, when will we ever do it?

“But we have to do it with caution. We have to remember that this virus is unfortunately still there. The cases are increasing, we can see the extreme contagiousness of the Delta variant.”

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The social distancing rules that in one form or another have governed people’s lives for over a year finally ended at midnight one minute Monday morning.

The limits of social gatherings have disappeared and the focus of homework has ended.

Nightclubs, theaters and restaurants can reopen completely, while pubs are no longer limited to table service.

Johnson now goes into self-isolation at his official country residence in Checkers after being ‘pinged’ by NHS Test and Trace following contact with Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who was tested positive for coronavirus.

Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who also met Javid on Friday, first tried to bypass the quarantine requirement by saying they would join a daily workplace testing program tested by the Cabinet Office.

However, they were forced to hastily turn around amid general public anger over their “special treatment” as tens of thousands were forced to take time off work or from the office. school and stay at home.

With new cases of the virus having already passed the 50,000-a-day mark, some scientists have expressed concern that restrictions will end as the Delta variant spreads so rapidly.

Professor Neil Ferguson – whose modeling led to the first lockdown in March 2020 – said daily cases could reach 200,000 before the current wave of the pandemic finally peaks.

He said this could lead to 2,000 hospitalizations a day, resulting in “major disruption” and further backlogs in NHS services.

Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of being “reckless”, saying it was a “mistake” to lift all remaining restrictions at once.

“We can already see the infection rates skyrocketing, we know what’s going to happen with hundreds of thousands of people being asked to self-isolate,” he said.

A number of nightclubs reopened at midnight on Monday for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Outside Egg nightclub in north London, clubbers lined up for over an hour and cheered as the clock struck midnight, after a countdown from 10.

First in line, fundraiser Chloe Waite, 37, said the occasion was “something we will long remember.”

“It will be a special night,” she said.

“For me, this is a New Years type event and something that we will remember for a very, very long time and we may not have the opportunity for a while.”

In Leeds, people lined up before entering Bar Fiber nightclub just after midnight.

“It’s so special,” said bar owner Terry George. “People treat it like a very special occasion, like a New Years Eve type affair. Freedom Eve is what we call it.

“Finally, we will be able to dance. This is the most important thing, which is a little sad actually, because we are given something back which is our given right, to be able to dance in a bar, in a club.

“It should have been something that was there much earlier than that.”

Watch: Nightclubs open at midnight on “Freedom Day”