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Boris Johnson has hinted that the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure that a family of five can invite both grandparents over for the holiday lunch.
The Prime Minister stressed this afternoon that the Government would do “everything possible to ensure that Christmas for all is as normal as possible”.
His comments came in an interview with ITVNews Anglia when asked if families of five would be allowed to invite both grandparents to the festive party.
In late September, a desperate prime minister pleaded with the British to “save Christmas” by obeying his Rule of Six.
In an interview with The Sun, justifying the deployment of a series of draconian measures to flatten the peak of the virus, he warned: “The only way to ensure that the country can enjoy Christmas is to be tough now.”
The promise of a relatively ‘normal’ Christmas day today comes shortly after issue 10 issued a ban on trick or treating, crushing any potential for Halloween fun on October 31.
A spokesperson told reporters that thousands of families under local confinement across wide areas of England should not be mixed up when asked whether ghoulish traditional events should take place on Halloween.
And he cautioned that the Rule of Six applied elsewhere, meaning parents face fines of up to £ 200 if their children are caught in larger groups going door-to-door shopping for candy.
When asked repeatedly if the trick or treating can take place around October 31, the prime minister’s deputy spokesman said: ‘The Rule of Six is clear, it includes children. We ask people not to gather in groups of six or more.
“In the areas of local confinement, we have been very clear that households should not mix. In other areas that are not closed, the Rule of Six applies.
“It is right for parents to be fined if the children gather in groups of more than six children.”
Tonight, Johnson blamed the ‘indifferent’ public for causing a coronavirus resurgence that forced him to introduce localized lockdowns affecting millions of Britons.
The prime minister accused voters of being “complacent” over the summer and allowing Covid-19 to proliferate again, despite his government allowing pubs to reopen and encouraging people to “eat out to help” businesses. in trouble in August.
A report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released today estimated that there were 8,400 daily cases of the disease in England in the week ending September 24. This marks a 12.5 percent drop from the 9,600 infections believed to have occurred every day in the previous week.
Coronaphobia is back: three-quarters are now very or somewhat concerned about the impact of the disease on their lives, according to the latest ONS indicators
Johnson spoke in an interview about Margaret Ferrier, the SNP MP who faces calls to resign as MP after traveling from Glasgow to London and returning while suffering from coronavirus.
When asked if he should resign, he said: ‘I’m going to leave that up to the SNP and their whips, that’s for them to decide, but it’s very important that everyone obey the rules and guidance, because they already saw what happened in March and April in Scotland, across the country, we come together and we managed to bring down the virus.
‘Unfortunately, what happened since then is that everyone became a little, you know, complacent and a little nonchalant about the broadcast and the rules on social distancing maybe not being obeyed in the way that they could have been or were enforced the way they could have been and that’s why we’ve had to take action both in Scotland and elsewhere to bring it down again. ‘
And in a second interview with the local BBC in the Northeast, he added: “What happened during the summer was a kind of wear and tear on people’s discipline and attention to those rules.”
When asked repeatedly if the trick or treating can take place around October 31, the prime minister’s deputy spokesman said: ‘The Rule of Six is clear, it includes children. We ask people not to gather in groups of six or more ‘
Coronaphobia is back: Only 20 percent of adults said they had met another home in a private setting in the past week, up from 30 percent the week before, an ONS survey shows.
The proportion traveling to workplaces dropped from 64% to 59%, after government guidance changed to recommend doing so whenever possible.
It came amid fears that London could soon follow parts of the northeast and northwest, including Newcastle and Liverpool, into a localized lockdown.
Tonight, 770 students from Northumbria University in Newcastle tested positive for Covid-19, as the city was named the epicenter of England’s coronavirus.
All the students, 78 of whom are symptomatic, are isolated for 14 days, along with their roommates and close contacts.
At least 50 UK universities have confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks, with 1,800 cases identified among students and staff, according to a survey.
News continues that infections in Newcastle have soared 60 percent to a rate of 250 cases per 100,000, according to health officials.
One in three Britons will live under stricter Covid-19 rules tomorrow than the rest of the country, despite data showing that local closures don’t work in most places and infection rates have risen.
Starting Saturday, two million residents in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough will be banned from meeting people they don’t live with indoors in a bid to reduce outbreaks there.
It will mean that a total of 22.4 million Britons will live under some form of economically crippling and socially restrictive local closure. The ministers have justified the measures claiming that they are the only way to stop a second national wave of the disease.
But data shows that Covid-19 infections have doubled in most areas of England that have been subject to long-term restrictions. In 11 of the 16 English cities and towns affected by the blockades in the last nine weeks, the infection rate has multiplied at least twice and, in some cases, more than ten times.
In Bolton, Britain’s current Covid-19 hotspot, there were 200 infections per 100,000 in the past seven days, up from 14 per 100,000 on July 31. In Wigan cases have risen from seven per 100,000 people to 102 in the same period.
Luton is the only area in the country that has managed to cut cases far enough to free itself from the shackles of a local lockdown, but even the town of Bedfordshire could face restrictions once again as cases have started to recover.
