Coronavirus: 2m ‘shielding’ in UK allowed outside from Monday
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Over 2m people in England who have been “shielding” from the coronavirus pandemic due to being deemed extremely vulnerable will be allowed outside for the first time in 10 weeks from Monday.
Yesterday the government announced that those who have been following the protocols will be able to go out with members of their family, while maintaining social distancing.
Those of the 2.2m people considered extremely vulnerable who live alone will be able to meet with one person from another household, the government added.
It cautioned that these people should only leave the house once a day and avoid going to work or other crowded places.
Speaking at this afternoon’s press conference, housing secretary Robert Jenrick said that over half of those shielding were under 70 years old.
90,000 of them are children, he added, praising the enormous sacrifices people had made.
He added that people “should only do what they are comfortable with” when it comes to venturing out.
In a statement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I do not underestimate just how difficult it has been for you, staying at home for the last 10 weeks, and I want to pay tribute to your resilience”.
The decision came as a surprise to many, as previous guidance had suggested the shielding rules would stay in place until the end of June.
Government unveils plans for rough sleepers
Jenrick also announced a programme of housebuilding for homeless people, promising that the government would invest £160m into keeping people off the street.
He said that as a result of the crisis, around 90 per cent of rough sleepers had been taken off the streets and put into accommodation.
The government will build 6,000 new homes over all, with 3,300 to be build this year, Jenrick pledged.
The new accommodation, he added, will be a “springboard to better things” for the homeless and a “symbol of hope and our belief that nothing is pre-determined”.
Raab: Government taking “the right steps”
The move is part of a broader relaxation of the lockdown rules announced by the government last week, with people now allowed to meet in public spaces or private gardens in groups of up to six.
Speaking to the BBC this morning, foreign secretary Dominic Raab defended the government’s decision to relax measures, despite the transmission rate for the virus remaining high.
Raab said that the approach was “cautious” and that the government was taking “the right steps” in easing the measures.
He added that the government had met the five tests needed to relax restrictions:
“Because we have made that progress, steadily, slowly, surely, week in, week out, we can very gradually, very carefully, take the steps that we are taking tomorrow”, he said.
Jenrick said that the government was “reasonably confident” in the steps it was taking, but admitted that “room for manoeuvre was limited”.
According to the Office of National Statistics, infection rates remain at around 8,000 a day, prompting fears that authorities were making changes too fast.
Some members of scientific group SAGE, which has been advising the government on the lockdown, warned that the disease is still spreading too fast to make such adjustments.
However, writing in today’s Telegraph, SAGE chairman and government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance backed Johnson’s decisions, saying it is up to politicians to make such choices
And England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the consensus among scientists was that the new measures were not expected to push the rate of infection above the key R value of 1.
He did warn people, however, to exercise caution as the measures lift.