29 March: How the next step in the Government’s Roadmap might impact you

Tomorrow marks a significant day in the Government’s roadmap calendar out of coronavirus lockdown as new rules come in to play ending the ‘Stay At Home’ warning.

On Monday 29 March people in England will be granted greater freedom to socialise with family and friends. Here’s how the new rules might impact you:

Social contact

The evidence shows that it is safer for people to meet outdoors rather than indoors. And this is why from 29 March, when most schools start to break up for the Easter holidays, outdoor gatherings (including in private gardens) of either 6 people (the Rule of 6) or 2 households will also be allowed, making it easier for friends and families to meet outside.

Business and activities

Outdoor sports facilities such as tennis and basketball courts, and open-air swimming pools, will also be allowed to reopen, and people will be able to take part in formally organised outdoor sports.

Travel

The ‘stay at home’ rule will end on 29 March but many restrictions will remain in place. People should continue to work from home where they can and minimise the number of journeys they make where possible, avoiding travel at the busiest times and routes. Travel abroad will continue to be prohibited, other than for a small number of permitted reasons. Holidays abroad will not be allowed, given it will remain important to manage the risk of imported variants and protect the vaccination programme. The Government has launched a new taskforce to review global travel which will report on 12 April.

These new measure have been taken after it was announced that more than 30 million people in the UK have received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine with the NHS preparing to administer millions of second doses in the coming weeks.

The UK health services vaccinated a total of 30,151,287 people between 8 December and 27 March with first doses - around 57% of all UK adults. In addition, 3,527,481 people have had their second doses, totalling 33,678,768 jabs administered overall.

Around 6% of the adult population have had their second doses so far and there will be a strong push over the coming weeks to give people their second jabs in line with the 12 week dose interval.

The rollout is continuing at pace and the UK is on track to achieve the Prime Minister’s target of offering all over-50s and the clinically vulnerable their first vaccine by 15 April, as well as all adults by the end of July.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “I’m absolutely thrilled that more than 30 million people have now had the jab across the UK - including 650,000 vaccinations delivered yesterday.

“The vaccine is saving lives and is our route out of this pandemic. I want to say a massive thanks to the team.”