Prime Minister outlines three step plan to ease lockdown measures in England

At the daily Downing Street briefing this evening  (May 11) Mr Johnson explained the “new Covid alert level system” which is in place.

Mr Johnson said: “The Covid Alert Level has five levels, each relating to the level of threat posed by the virus.

“The level will be primarily determined by the R value and the number of coronavirus cases.

“In turn, that Covid Alert Level will determine the level of social distancing measures in place.”

He added: “The lower the level, the fewer the measures.”

Mr Johnson said that since lockdown started, the country has been at Level 4, “meaning a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation and transmission is high or rising exponentially.”

He told the briefing: “Thanks to the hard work, sacrifices of the British people in this lockdown, we’ve helped to bring the R level down and the number of infections down and we’re now in a position to begin moving to Level 3 in steps.”

The Prime Minister also elaborated on the government’s new slogan for tackling the pandemic.

 “We’re now asking people to stay alert, control the virus and save lives and yes, staying alert for the vast majority of people still means staying at home as much as possible," he said.

“But there are a range of other actions we’re advising people to take as we modify our measures.

“People should stay alert by working from home, if you can, limiting contact with other people.”

The Prime Minister said other measures include keeping distance from others, wearing a face-covering in enclosed spaces such as public transport and isolating if someone in your house has symptoms.

He added: “If everyone stays alert and follows the rules we can control coronavirus by keeping the R down and reducing the number of infections and this is how we can continue to save lives and livelihoods as we begin as a nation to recover from coronavirus.”

Mr Johnson said that the new measures announced today mean that "those who can't work from home should now speak to their employer about going back to work."

"You can work and exercise as long as you like," Mr Johnson said.

"You can meet one person outside your household - provided you stay two metres apart".

When asked by a member of the public whether people can meet friends and family at the park while observing social distancing rules, Mr Johnson said “just as a pair”.

Speaking at the Downing Street press briefing, Mr Johnson said: “What we are saying is that you can go to the park to exercise on your own in an unlimited way, you can go with members of your own household.

“But if you want to meet somebody from outside your household, it’s got to be you and that other person just as a pair and you should observe social distancing while you’re there.

“And so each of you basically on a one-on-one thing but with social distancing, keeping two metres apart.”

The government’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said scientists on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) were confident that “the risks of transmission outdoors was much lower than the risks of transmission indoors”.

But he added that they were not zero, adding: “We therefore want to take these modest steps one stage at a time and that’s why the ministers and the Government have decided to make this small change… but does not lead to people meeting multiple people outside their household at once.”

Mr Johnson added that meeting lots of members of family from another household at the park while standing two metres apart was “pushing it too far”.

The Prime Minister told the Downing Street briefing that workers in industries who had been urged to return to work should still remain at home if they had no access to childcare.

He said workers in sectors such as construction could stay at home if there is no alternative and if their children don’t fall under the year groups who it is aimed will be sent back to school from June 1.

He said: “If people don’t have access to childcare and they’ve got a child who isn’t back in school for one reason or another yet, (they) can’t get them back until June 1 or even then, they don’t fall into the years we’re getting back immediately, then I think it’s only fair to regard that as an obvious barrier to their ability to go back to work and I’m sure that employers will agree with that.

“Stay at home if you can but go to work now if you have no alternative.”

When asked about people who were “perplexed” about the new message, Mr Johnson said: “Yes of course the message that we were giving out initially was incredibly clear and incredibly stark and the UK population actually obeyed it more thoroughly than many other populations around the world.

“We’ve now made so much progress in combating the disease and pushing the R down that we need to make progress, if we possibly can, in relaxing some of the measures very, very cautiously.”

The Prime Minister said this would require telling the public that those who cannot work from home should now consider going back to work if it is safe to do so.

He added: “Obviously when it comes to transport we are very keen that there isn’t a huge crush on public transport, it simply won’t have the capacity because we’ve got to maintain social distancing measures.

“That doesn’t mean public transport can’t operate, we want to be running more capacity, more tubes, more trains if we possibly can, but it does mean that people really should think about alternatives.”

When asked whether he approved of the change of guidance, Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific advisor, said: “Science has had input to the whole plan.

“We’ve been particularly concentrated on the three phases to make sure that those three phases are properly grouped.

“Conditionality is crucially important, it’s very very important that this is done slowly and it’s done carefully.”

Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, added: “We’ve been involved in all stages of the process.

“Neither Sir Patrick and I would consider ourselves to be comms experts so we’re not going to get involved in actual details of actual comms strategies.”