1:51 pm, January 19, 2022
Face masks will no longer have to be worn in car showrooms in England as the Plan B measures to stop the spread of Covid are dropped.
Boris Johnson told the House of Commons this afternoon (Jan 19) the booster programme had worked so well that the country could go back to Plan A.
He said that more than 90 per cent of over-60s across the UK had now had booster vaccines to protect them, and scientists believed the Omicron wave had peaked.
Masks were made compulsory again in shops and on public transport in England last November.
The Plan B measures, which included having to show the NHS Covid Pass in certain settings and working from home if possible, were imposed in December to try to contain the Omicron variant.
But as of Thursday next week (Jan 27), when the Plan B measures were due to lapse, mandatory mask-wearing in retail environments and on public transport will end, and people will no longer be told to work from home. Compulsory Covid certification will also end the same day.
However, people are still being advised to wear a mask if they’re in crowded or enclosed spaces, especially if meeting strangers.
The legal requirement for people with coronavirus to self-isolate will be allowed to lapse as well when the regulations expire on March 24, and that date could be brought forward.
The prime minister also signalled his intention to start treating Covid-19 more like flu, saying: ‘There will soon come a time when we can remove the legal requirement to self-isolate altogether, just as we don’t place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have flu.’
Face masks will be scrapped in classrooms in England from tomorrow (Jan 20), with communal areas following ‘shortly’.
