Prime Minister Boris Johnson has this evening eased stay-at-home orders, asking people to return to work if they are unable to work from home, allowing sunbathing, exercise and car travel.
To encourage people back to work the Prime Minister actively encouraged those who cannot work from home to go to work but to try and avoid public transport if at all possible. “We said that you should work from home if you can, and only go to work if you must.
“We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work.
“And we want it to be safe for you to get to work. So you should avoid public transport if at all possible – because we must and will maintain social distancing, and capacity will therefore be limited.
“So work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home.”
From this Wednesday, 13th May, people in the UK will be able to sunbathe in their local parks, exercise as much as they want and drive to other destinations.
“From this Wednesday we want to encourage people to take more and even unlimited amounts of outdoor exercise,” he said.
“You can sit in the sun in your local park, you can drive to other destinations, you can even play sports but only with members of your own household.
“You must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them.”
Step 2 of the roadmap to reopening the UK, is to reopen the schools. Starting with the primary schools.
“at the earliest by June 1 – after half term – we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.”
“Our ambition is that secondary pupils facing exams next year will get at least some time with their teachers before the holidays.”
Step 3 – July at the earliest – will see a return to ‘some’ pubs and restaurants – “if and only if the numbers support it, we will hope to re-open at least some of the hospitality industry and other public places, provided they are safe and enforce social distancing.”
