Lockdown easing on hold in England as coronavirus cases rise

England expedition on clutch on lockdown

Plans to further ease England’s coronavirus lockdown have been put on hold because of a rise in the rate of infections Boris Johnson says it's

now time to squeeze the brake pedal on any further relaxation of the rules warning that the country shouldn't be complacent the prime

Minister now says face covering should be worn in more places where people can come into contact with others they don't know bowling alleys

skating rinks and casinos won't be reopening tomorrow as planned and certain beauty treatments involving the face won't be allowed for at least

two weeks wedding receptions of up to 30 people and indoor musical and theatrical performances won't be allowed either and the public will

have to wear face coverings in cinemas museums and galleries as well as places of worship from august the 8th England’s chief medical officer

professor Chris whittle says the country has probably reached the limits of what can be done in opening up society with infections now rising

here's our political correspondent Leila nathu poised to stage a performance for the first time in months this venue in London was due

to open its doors tomorrow 80 seats normally 180 and now we can't open and that's a huge financial hit for us here at phoenix businesses still closed across England have been waiting for the next phase of unlocking to begin but now with cases of coronavirus on the rise again the prime

 

Minister pressing pause at every point i have said our plan to reopen the society and the economy is conditional that it relies on continued

progress against the virus and we would not hesitate to put the brakes on

if required with those numbers creeping up our assessment is that we

should now squeeze that brake pedal and so on Saturday the 1st of august you'll remember we had hoped to reopen in England a number of

the higher risk settings that had remained closed and today I’m afraid we're postponing those changes for at least a fortnight Boris Johnson acknowledging the disruption this will cause i know that the steps that

we're taking will be a real blow to many people and I’m really sorry about that but we simply cannot take the risk that apology aimed at

 

People like Luke and Vicky whose wedding reception in Chorley already slimmed down has now been cancelled you have dreams of what

your wedding's going to look like and them dreams have already been shattered and so once we heard about this a week before our wedding

then yeah it was devastating and obviously very upset although

Employers are still being encouraged to think about how to get people back to work and advice on shielding will still come to an end face

coverings will now be required in more places like galleries cinemas and museums how worried are you that this is going to turn into a surge and

why is it that we find ourselves in this position because the government's message has been unclear and inconsistent or are we all to blame we're

 now seeing uh a warning light on the dashboard it is right to respond in the way that we are the answer lies with all of us following that guidance

but from a man who's always struck a cautious tone a stark warning about the challenges to come we have probably reached near the limits

or the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society so what that means potentially is if we wish to do more things in the future we

may have to do less of some other things and these will be difficult trade-offs as well as juggling what's happening nationally targeted local

restrictions like those imposed in parts of northern england last night are also here to stay Scotland’s first minister now advising against all but

Essential travel to the areas affected we see this as being an important and necessary precaution our advice is of course designed to minimize the risk of spread from England into Scotland but it is also designed to

Assist people in these parts of England and labor questioning how the message was relayed right decision very poor communication that's got

to improve we're going to see more of these situations over the coming

Weeks and months the government needs to learn the lesson of the last

24 hours which is improve the communication still empty spaces still tables unfilled the government says it's now up to us to stick closely to

the rules so lockdown easing can resume well four million people living in communities in northern england now have to abide by strict new

Measures which came into effect today people living in greater

Manchester and in parts of east Lancashire and west Yorkshire can no longer visit another household in their home or garden support bubbles

are exempt from this rule and the police will have the power of

Enforcement you can still go to pubs restaurants and shops in the

Affected areas as well as places of worship but only with your own household the tougher rules follow a jump in new infections in the past

 

Week in almost every part of greater Manchester as our north of England

Correspondent Judith Morita reports now from Old ham in central Manchester tonight you could hardly tell that restrictions have been

Tightened the bars were bursting but under the new rules in this area

Socializing with people from other households isn't allowed and scenes

like this may be upsetting for those who've had to cancel their plans in oldham the ali family were supposed to be celebrating eid at home with

visiting relatives the food was all prepared now the party would be

illegal the guests aren't coming it's devastating to be honest like few hours before it starts you're getting told oh no you can't do anything it's

really upsetting we did expect more we do think we've been targeted but

we can't really do you think that this timing was chosen because of eid to

stop family gatherings large gatherings we yeah we do feel like quite

unfair but um it's just we feel like it's been quite insensitive of them the

people making the decision it's the short notice that's really good people

and it's not just celebrations at home which are affected but the chance to party elsewhere with friends at night I would have probably gone out

with my mates out to rimzo road or whatever in Manchester but it looks like them plans have changed as well going to have to stay inside over in

Bradford community elders aren't questioning the restrictions but are angry at the last minute timing i paid you a scenario it's 9 30 on

Christmas eve you put the turkey in the oven and then you see a twitter feed which is telling you that christmas is cancelled so yeah

Disappointing anger the lack of notice really here in oldham the

Infection rate has risen more sharply in the last week than anywhere else

it's now more than 10 times the average for england and have been sharp

 

rises in other northern communities too local leaders say they accept the restrictions but they've criticized the government for its communications

Saying local people feel confused and distressed we would strongly recommend to the government that at the time a public or media

Statement is made affecting any area across the country it must then

Follow that detailed information is immediately available at the same

Time as the making of that statement in a public arena there's been

Criticism from both the police and politicians of those young people who are continuing to socialize in groups and concern about increasing

Infection rates amongst young adults in Manchester city center tonight

that met with a mixed response i think if you look around you can

Probably see why we've got a spike in Manchester because people have really been like socializing and i think it's hard to stop people doing that

as soon as you open up the restaurants and the bars so i understand it and i'm currently adhering to it so i haven't got a problem at all i understand

the government and i trust the government we're staying in the same house tonight in life yeah we've been staying together for like the past

Few days so you know it's against the rules for people from different

countries yeah i know but yeah but we came up with before lockdown we are quite a socially responsible generation you know we want to make sure that our parents are safe and our grandparents are more

Worried as well like they're in as well none of us are not worried in

oldham the ali family may not be able to celebrate eid as they wanted

but they're not letting that stop them from staying in touch even online they're determined to be together judith moritz bbc news oldham in the

last 24-hour period another 120 people have died after testing positive for the coronavirus in the uk taking the total number of deaths to 46 119.

the uk seven-day rolling average is 753 and you can see from the chart that cases have been rising slightly in the past week scientists don't know

whether that's because of more or better testing and if it's the beginning of a resurgence in infections as we've been seeing elsewhere in Europe

two dozen areas are now on public health England’s watch list due to the rise in infection rates as our science editor david shukman explains

relaxing the lockdown is not going to happen as quickly as many had

hoped we're not on the brink of returning to the toughest restrictions the

scale of the disease is too low for that but the virus does seem once again to be reaching a growing number of people the latest estimates for

Infections in england which are always higher than the cases actually confirmed by testing show a rise from two thousand a day at the end of june to three thousand in mid-july to 4200 more recently and one

Government advisor speaking personally says he's concerned i think we need to be much more cautious we need to adhere to best practice and i

do worry that if it gets out of control it could trigger another second wave quite early which we really don't want and if this had happened in

October i think that would have been an unstoppable event we're

nowhere near the scale of infections we saw at the height of the pandemic back in march and april but there are now more than 20 are

as of concern including those in the northwest that had new restrictions imposed on them last night top of that list is oldham along with Trafford and salford over the border in wales Wareham has a relatively high 61 cases per hundred thousand people but that is down a bit from the week

before in Scotland where there's a low level of infections Glasgow has

had three new cases over the last seven days likewise in northern Ireland

where there's a handful of cases in lisbon and castle ray this comes at a time of changing messages from the government on how to keep a safe distance and whether to stay at home experts in behavior say a much

 clearer guide is needed the government strategy seems to be a haphazard and responsive rather than strategic it's leaving people

confused as to what they should and shouldn't be doing and confused as to what's coming next one measure we will see more of is face coverings

they'll be required in more places a reminder in these more nervous times of how until there's a vaccine there aren't many ways to stop the

virus from spreading david shukman bbc news in wales swimming pools gyms leisure centers and indoor play areas will be allowed to reopen

from the 10th of august up to 30 people can meet outdoors and children under 11 won't have to social distance from monday licensed wedding

Venues can also reopen from Monday but receptions will need to be outdoors Welles’s first minister mark drake ford admitted that today's new lockdown restrictions in the north of England had given him pause for thought well in a moment we'll hear from our political correspondent

leila nathu at Westminster but first to our health correspondent lauren moss who's here with me uh lauren the chief medical officer he says we

may have reached the limits uh of the kind of easing that we can go

through while this virus is still out there and there's plenty of evidence

giving him the feeling that that should be the case that's right chris whitty said the idea that we could open everything back up again while

keeping the virus under control was clearly wrong and he said there will be difficult trade-offs ahead and we were warned all along that this

Could happen as we emerge from lockdown as human behavior changes people are mixing more together and that's when the virus spreads but as

we heard in David’s piece there the rate of infection is still nowhere near

What it was during the peak of the pandemic but cases are climbing up in the uk by around about a quarter to what they were two weeks ago and tonight the world health organization's emergency committee has called the pandemic a once in a century health crisis it heard that many

countries that believe they would pass the worst of it and now grappling with fresh outbreaks so experts here will be keeping a close eye on

what's happening elsewhere in Europe 300 new confirmed cases in

france the last 24 hours 1500 in spain more than 800 here and scientists say we are close to the tipping point at which infection could increase here it's not known yet just how effective the local lockdowns and

tougher restrictions will be in Leicester it does seem to be working those

case numbers are coming back down but it is still early days introducing

Those measures and if cases do go up as they may indeed do the number

 of things that we'll be able to do will come down okay laura many

Thanks Lauren moss there let's talk now to uh leilanath who's at Westminster our political correspondent laila um in the final analysis um it the easing of the lockdown it is a political decision uh and it's

Obviously a difficult one that the government has to take in the

Circumstances yeah i think the picture is definitely now more complex in terms of these now competing aims of trying to still suppress the virus while opening up we know now that we have reached the point where

we are about as far as we could go if we want to pursue both of those and i think the difficulty is is that the message is now getting more

Nuanced it was just a fortnight ago that boris johnson was talking about a

path back to a significant normality by Christmas there was a bit more of a sense of optimism a bit more of a path a sense of a way forward now

you have concerns about a spike in infections in europe and the impact of that you've got different restrictions being imposed and released in

different areas across the country and then you have this rolling back off

the unlocking across england so i think the picture is definitely more

tricky and i think the government has always always already has always

said that everything would be dependent on keeping infection levels down they said they would have to react quickly to an evolving picture

but i think as we start to see the effects of unlocking play out we know

there will be many more difficult choices to come okay.