Yesterday British prime minister Boris Johnson set out the greatest easing of lockdown measures so far in England.
However, there are fears that on 4 July when pubs, cinemas and restaurants and hairdressers open it will trigger a second wave of coronavirus infections.
UK correspondent Harriet Line told Kathryn Ryan businesses being allowed to re-open were having to enforce various measures to keep customers safe.
Photo: AFP
“Places like hairdressers will be discouraged from chatting to their customers while they cut their hair, and music systems in pubs won’t be able to be turned up too high so patrons don’t need to start raising their voices in order to communicate with each other. All to reduce the chance of aerosols being sprayed around,” Line says.
Johnson has heralded this easing as “the great national hibernation comes to an end,” Line says, but not all businesses are allowed to open.
“So, we’ve got this kind of curious situation of you’re able to get a haircut, but you can’t have a manicure, or you’re able to go to the cinema but not to the theatre, to a beach but not to a chlorinated swimming pool.
“If you are 18 you can go to a pub and order a pint on July 4th but you can’t go into your sixth form college and study.”
While the easing gets underway the UK is still seeing a steady increase in Covid-19 cases and there are fears social distancing measure will be difficult to enforce.
“We are still seeing over 1000 new cases a day in the UK and the death toll is still rising by much smaller but still very substantial numbers, there were another 154 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. Our death toll is at least 43,000 and that figure is actually an awful lot higher perhaps around 54,000.”
There are doubts the government has accurate data on the actual number of active cases and its track and trace app has failed to materialise, she says.
“There have been calls form health leaders to day for the Government to undertake an urgent review of whether Britain is properly prepared for the risk of a second wave of coronavirus.
“Because if we don’t have contact tracing in place and we don’t have effective ways to lock down the system then actually, how prepared are we?”
The UK is currently in the middle of a heatwave raising further concerns that crowded beaches and parks will become vectors for transmission.
Sun-seekers cool off in the water and sunbathe on the riverbank at Hackney Marshes in east London yesterday, as temperatures reached 31 degrees. Photo: AFP
