LONDON (AP) – Britain’s slow but steady march of a three-month blockade continues on the way, even as the number of coronaviruses in other parts of Europe is rising, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday , confirming that barber and bookstore businesses will be allowed to reopen next week.
Johnson said it was too early to decide, however, whether UK residents would be able to take summer trips abroad. He confirmed that the government will test a contentious “vaccine passport” system – a way for people to offer proof that they have protection against COVID-19 – as a tool to help travel and big events return safely.
Four weeks after England took its first step out of the blockade by reopening schools, Johnson said Britain’s vaccination program was doing well and infections were decreasing. He said the next step will come as planned on April 12, with the reopening of hairdressers, beauty salons, fitness centers, non-essential stores and courtyards of bars and restaurants.
“We have established our roadmap and we are following it,” Johnson said during a news conference.
But, he added, “We cannot be complacent. We can see the waves of disease that afflict other countries and see how this story continues ”.
The ban on overnight stays in England will also be lifted on April 12, and outdoor venues such as zoos and drive-in cinemas may work again.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are following similar but slightly different paths to get out of the blockade.
Britain recorded almost 127,000 deaths from coronavirus, the highest number of deaths in Europe. But infections and deaths have fallen dramatically during the current blockade and since the start of a vaccination campaign that has given the first dose to more than 31 million people, or six out of 10 adults.
The government plans to give all adults at least one vaccine injection by July, and hopes that a combination of vaccination and mass testing will allow for socialization indoors and the return of large-scale events.
He says that all adults and children in England will be encouraged to undergo routine coronavirus tests twice a week as a way to prevent further outbreaks. The government said free side-flow testing will be available free of charge from Friday, by mail, in pharmacies and in the workplace.
Lateral flow tests provide results in minutes, but are less accurate than the PCR smear tests used to officially confirm COVID-19 cases. But the government insists that they are reliable and will help find people who contract the virus, but have no symptoms.
The British are currently prohibited by law from spending holidays abroad under the extraordinary powers that Parliament has given the government to fight the pandemic. The government said on Monday that it would not lift the travel ban until May 17 – and perhaps later.
“The government expects people to be able to travel to and from the UK to take a summer vacation this year, but it is still too early to know what is possible,” he said in an official update.
As soon as travel is resumed, Britain will classify countries in a system of traffic lights as green, yellow or red based on their level of vaccinations, infections and new variants of worrying viruses. People arriving from “green” countries will have to be tested, but they will not face quarantine.
The government is also testing a “COVID status certification” system – often dubbed “vaccine passports” – that would allow people looking to travel or attend events to show they have received a coronavirus vaccine, tested negative for the virus or recently had COVID-19 and therefore some immunity.
A series of events will begin this month, including football matches, comedy shows and marathon races. The government said that the first events will rely only on tests, “but in later pilots, vaccination and acquired immunity should be alternative ways of demonstrating status”.
The issue of vaccine passports has been hotly debated around the world, raising questions about how much governments, employers and locals have a right to know about a person’s virus status. The idea is contested by a wide range of British lawmakers, from center-left opposition politicians to members of Johnson’s Conservative Party, and the policy may face strong opposition when it is presented to Parliament later this month.
Conservative lawmaker Graham Brady said vaccine passports would be “intrusive, expensive and unnecessary”. The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, called the idea “not British”.
The government said vaccine passports were practically unavoidable, since many countries certainly required proof of COVID-19 status for entry. And he said that preventing British companies from asking customers for similar evidence would be “an unwarranted intrusion into the way companies choose to make their facilities secure”.
The government said, however, that vaccine passports would never be needed to access “essential public services, public transport and essential stores”.
Johnson acknowledged that vaccine passports raised “complicated ethical and practical issues” and emphasized that their introduction was not imminent.
“We are far from finalizing any plans for COVID certification in the UK,” he said.
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