Shops, gyms, hairdressers and pub gardens reopened in England after being closed for months as part of a nationwide closure to suppress an increase in coronavirus infections.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday’s latest relaxation of the heaviest restrictions in the UK’s peacetime history was a “major step” towards freedom as it urged people to behave with COVID-19 still as a threat despite a rapid mass vaccination program.
The closure was implemented in England on 6 January in response to rising infection rates due to the spread of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus first identified in south-east Kent County in late last year.
Johnson’s Conservative Party government plan to get out of closure is based on a vaccine deployment that has meant more than 32 million people (more than 60% of adults) receive a first dose in the UK.
Nearly 7.5 million people have been inoculated with two doses.
Getting people to spend again is crucial to the UK’s economic recovery; official data showed that 2020 was the worst fiscal year in more than three centuries, with a 9.8% drop in gross domestic product.
“I’m sure it will be a great relief for those business owners who have been closed for so long and for the rest, it’s an opportunity to do again some of the things we love and have missed.” , Johnson said in a statement Sunday.
“I urge everyone to continue to behave responsibly and remember ‘hands, face, space and fresh air’ to suppress COVID as we move forward with our vaccination program.”
Many have rushed to look for hairdressers, which reopened as part of the blockade [Lee Smith/Reuters]
The relaxation of the measures led to a downpour of commercial activities, where people were seen queuing outside shops all over England, while others had their hair cut early.
Many enjoyed al fresco dining and drinks with friends and family, despite the cold weather that caused snow in some parts of the capital, London and other areas.
The prime minister had promised to visit a pub himself on the occasion of the occasion, but postponed the celebratory drink after the death of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, on Friday.
“A game of two halves”
According to Johnson’s plan, drinking and eating will not be allowed inside until at least May 17, when the next closing step is scheduled.
Theaters, cinemas, nightclubs and most other venues remain closed, while indoor socialization is tightly restricted. Foreign holidays are still prohibited.
The government is trying to lift all restrictions in England by mid-June and hopes that by the end of July all over-18s will have received a first dose of vaccine.
Decentralized administrations in the rest of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) are taking different but similar measures.
The relaxation of the measures on Monday, the third since the closure was implemented, caused a rain of commercial activities [Carl Recine/Reuters]
The UK-wide vaccination campaign has reduced COVID-19 deaths by more than 95% and cases by more than 90% since the January peak.
To date, the UK has recorded more than 127,000 pandemic deaths, marking the fifth highest death toll in the world.
Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, published from the southeastern city of Brighton, compared the government’s approach to the crisis as a “two-half game.”
“If you use it as a football analogy … the first half was absolutely terrible, as the government apparently made an endless series of own goals, fatal own goals that killed many, many thousands of people.” , said Challands. .
He cited a high rate of deaths from COVID-19 in care homes and the failure to ensure that front-line health workers received adequate amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the early stages of the pandemic as proof of ministerial errors.
“But what the government did at the beginning was a very strong commitment to the vaccine program and it was one of the first countries in the world to implement it … that has meant that the government of the second half has recovered,” he said. add Challands. “And now people feel so much more positive.”