Lockdown step four delayed until 19 July 2021

Step four of the government's Four-Step plan to end lockdown restrictions which was to happen on 21 June has now been delayed until Monday 19 July.

The new date announced by the Prime Minister on 14 June is linked to the ongoing vaccination roll-out, with the hope that two-thirds of the adult population having been offered two doses by mid July. All over 18s will have been offered at least one dose.

It appears that two doses provide a 'strong degree' of protection.

The government appears confident that no further delay will be necessary after 19 July. 

Indeed, on 5 July the Prime Minister said that it was likely that from 19 July all restrictions were likely to be removed - although a final decision will be made on 12 July.

No further financial support for businesses and individuals has been announced as yet for the four week delay.  According to the Guardian newspaper, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has rejected business demands for an extension of the furlough scheme and business rates relief, despite the delay.

Restrictions remaining in place for the moment include:

• Limits on numbers of people who can mix indoors and outdoors
• Pubs, clubs, theatres and cinemas continue with limited capacity
• Limits on the number of people attending sporting events
• Nightclubs to remain shut

In addition, face coverings and social distancing continue.

Weddings

One exception is weddings, which from 21 June can go ahead with more than 30 guests, provided social distancing remains in place. The same will apply to wakes.  This was also confirmed in a separate statement by the Health Secretary in the House of Commons:

"We’re removing the 30 person gathering limit for weddings, receptions and commemorative events, subject of course to social distancing guidelines."

Care homes and schools

The Health Secretary added:

"We’re easing rules in care homes, including removing the requirement for residents to isolate for 14 days after visits out.

And we’re allowing out-of-school settings to organise residential visits in bubbles of up to 30 children, in line with the current position for schools."

The Prime Minister explained:

"Vaccination greatly reduces transmission and two doses provide a very high degree of protection against serious illness and death. But there are still millions of younger adults who have not been vaccinated and sadly a proportion of the elderly and vulnerable may still succumb even if they have had two jabs.

And that is why we are so concerned by the Delta variant that is now spreading faster than the third wave predicted in the February roadmap. We’re seeing cases growing by about 64 per cent per week, and in the worst affected areas, it’s doubling every week. And the average number of people being admitted to hospital in England has increased by 50 per cent week on week, and by 61 per cent in the North West, which may be the shape of things to come. Because we know the remorseless logic of exponential growth and even if the link between infection and hospitalisation has been weakened it has not been severed.

And even if the link between hospitalisation and death has also been weakened, I’m afraid numbers in intensive care, in ICU are also rising. And so we have faced a very difficult choice. We can simply keep going with all of step 4 on June 21st even though there is a real possibility that the virus will outrun the vaccines and that thousands more deaths would ensue that could otherwise have been avoided.

Or else we can give our NHS a few more crucial weeks to get those remaining jabs into the arms of those who need them. And since today I cannot say that we have met all four tests for proceeding with step four, I do think it is sensible to wait just a little longer."

19 July date

The Prime Minister added:

"By Monday 19th July we will aim to have double jabbed around two thirds of the adult population including everyone over 50, all the vulnerable, all the frontline health and care workers and everyone over 40 who received their first dose by mid-May. And to do this we will now accelerate the 2nd jabs for those over 40 – just as we did for the vulnerable groups – so they get maximum protection as fast as possible.

And we will bring forward our target to give every adult in this country a first dose by 19th July that is including young people over the age of 18 with 23 and 24 year olds invited to book jabs from tomorrow - so we reduce the risk of transmission among groups that mix the most. And to give the NHS that extra time we will hold off step 4 openings until July 19th except for weddings that can still go ahead with more than 30 guests provided social distancing remains in place and the same will apply to wakes. And we will continue the pilot events – such as Euro2020 and some theatrical performances. We will monitor the position every day and if after 2 weeks we have concluded that the risk has diminished then we reserve the possibility of proceeding to Step 4 and full opening sooner.

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."

Further information

Check out our Business after COVID-19: Transition Knowledge Hub for more guidance and advice on managing the pandemic.

[Gary Mackley-Smith]