LAST UPDATE | 22 Sep 2020

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Boris Johnson has been forced to abandon his drive to get people back to work as he prepares to announce new restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Pubs, bars and restaurants in England will be ordered to close by 10pm each night from Thursday under tough restrictions set to be announced Johnson today.

The Prime Minister will use an address to the nation on this evening to outline new measures to stop the spread of Covid-19, which will also restrict the hospitality sector to table service only.

Johnson will emphasise the need for people to follow social-distancing guidance, wear face coverings and wash their hands regularly, and – according to reports – urge people to work from home where it does not hurt businesses.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove accepted that the Government’s call for people to return to the workplace, a measure seen as critical for the survival of cafes and other businesses which rely on commuters and office workers, had been dropped.

According to The Daily Telegraph, other potential measures being considered include a further delay to trials of spectators returning to professional sport events and the closure of indoor concert venues.

It comes after the government’s chief scientific and medical advisers painted a grim picture of how 200 or more people in the UK could die each day by mid-November if the current rate of infection is not halted.

Patrick Vallance, speaking alongside Professor Chris Whitty, said the “vast majority of the population remain susceptible” to catching coronavirus and the current situation required swift action to bring the case numbers down.

The UK’s four chief medical officers then recommended raising the Covid alert level from three to four – the second highest – indicating the “epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or rising exponentially”.

Johnson will chair meetings of Cabinet and the Cobra emergency committee – including the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – today before a televised address at 8pm.

A Number 10 spokesperson said: “No-one underestimates the challenges the new measures will pose to many individuals and businesses.

“We know this won’t be easy, but we must take further action to control the resurgence in cases of the virus and protect the NHS.”

The fresh restrictions sparked anger from the hospitality sector, with Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, describing them as “another crushing blow” for many businesses.

“A hard close time is bad for business and bad for controlling the virus – we need to allow time for people to disperse over a longer period,” she said.

“Table service has been widely adopted in some parts of the sector since reopening but it is not necessary across all businesses, such as coffee shops.

It is hard to understand how these measures are the solution to fighting the disease when government data shows that just 5% of infections out of the home are related to hospitality.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said the new rules would “feel like a step backwards”, and urged the government to fix the track and trace system and help the hospitality sector.

He said: “The Prime Minister must also financially help pubs and restaurants who will inevitably lose business. After people have already been through so much hardship, we cannot allow thousands of jobs to disappear overnight.”

Working from home

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Michael Gove said that people are also going to be urged to work from home once more after being encouraged in recent months to return to working in the office. 

Full exchange on new WFH advice between @michaelgove and @KayBurley: pic.twitter.com/8n6ZZWufwy

— Joe Pike (@joepike) September 22, 2020

There is going to be a shift in emphasis. And one of the things that we are going to emphasise is that, if it is possible for people to work from home, then we’d encourage them to do so,” he said,

Now, it’s important to stress that there are many, many, many roles, which can’t be performed from home. There are people in manufacturing and construction, in retail and other roles where we recognise that simply impossible. And that’s fine, we have worked to make sure that you can have Covid-secure workplaces. 

In mid-September, around 3,000 new cases were recorded every day in the UK and if the growth continued unabated that would result in 50,000 cases by the middle of October, Vallance said yesterday.

He warned the “50,000 cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November, say, to 200-plus deaths per day”.

“The challenge therefore is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.”

- With reporting by Rónán Duffy