As most of you already know the lifting of the lockdown has been delayed until July the 19th. This is a bitter blow as we were expected to be fully released from lockdown today. This announcement doesn’t come as a major shock and was widely expected and as frustrating as it is we must abide by the rules to ensure that come July 19th the lockdown can be lifted.
Below is a small snippet from the Prime Ministers Statement regarding the 4-week delay:
“As things stand – and on the basis of the evidence I can see right now – I am confident we will not need any more than 4 weeks and we won’t need to go beyond July 19th. It is unmistakably clear the vaccines are working and the sheer scale of the vaccine roll-out has made our position incomparably better than in previous waves.
But now is the time to ease off the accelerator because by being cautious now we have the chance – in the next four weeks – to save many thousands of lives by vaccinating millions more people. And once the adults of this country have been overwhelmingly vaccinated, which is what we can achieve in a short space of time, we will be in a far stronger position to keep hospitalisations down, to live with this disease, and to complete our cautious but irreversible roadmap to freedom.”
However, there is some good news, a few restrictions are being lifted from today and these include:
- The number of guests at a wedding will no longer be limited to 30, although venues and hosts will have to do a risk assessment to ensure social distancing can take place (similar rules apply to wakes)
- Care home residents will not necessarily have to self-isolate after leaving their care homes, and they will be able to nominate an “essential care-giver” who can visit, even if the resident is self-isolating
- Children can go on overnight trips in groups of 30 with, for example, the Scouts or Guides, or as part of summer residential schools
- Also, large events pilots will continue, including more Euro 2020 games and a number of other sports, arts and music events
Although this is not the news we were all hoping for, there is still light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully this 4-week period will allow even more vaccinations to take place to ensure that everyone is safe in the future.
As always stay safe and don’t take any unnecessary chances that could put you or others at risk of infection.
We will provide further updates for our team and clients as announcements are made.
Have a great week.
The Countrywide Windows Team
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