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Boris Johnson told Brits to work from home when possible and ordered pubs and restaurants to close early as he sought to end the coronavirus resurgence in the coming weeks.
Under the new measures for England, which are likely to last six months, face covering will be mandatory for passengers traveling in taxis and workers in the hospitality and retail sectors, with stiffer fines for people who do not wear masks. . Similar measures are being taken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“This is the moment when we must act,” Johnson told Parliament on Tuesday. By imposing restrictions now, the government can “protect the economy from the much more severe and costly measures that would inevitably be necessary later,” he said.
The measures are a reversal of efforts to reopen the economy after the first national shutdown shut down social and business activity in March, triggering the UK’s deepest recession in more than 100 years.
They also illustrate the difficulty facing the government as it tries to balance the need to protect the economy and crush a pandemic that has killed more people in Britain than in any other European nation. Johnson’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance warned Monday that without action the UK is on track to record 50,000 new Covid-19 cases a day in mid-October.
Under the new rules, bars and restaurants will be ordered to close at 10 p.m. starting Thursday with all transactions restricted to table service. Plans to allow business events to resume as of October 1 and the crowds to return to live sports venues will be suspended.
Effective immediately, the government’s message is changing to encourage more people in England to work from home, wherever possible. This applies especially to office workers, where individuals and their employers agree that it is possible to work at home effectively, authorities said.
Schools and medical centers will remain open and workers providing essential services will be encouraged to go to their places of work.
Johnson’s announcement is a clear turnaround in the administration’s approach. Ministers have spent the last two months trying to persuade the British to return to their workplaces to revive the deserted urban centers where sandwich shops and other hotel businesses are struggling to survive. The government also subsidized restaurant meals throughout August in an effort to boost the industry and restore Britons to pre-Covid habits.
