Boris Johnson has announced a new set of rules outlining what you can and can’t do from Monday onwards, after a national rise in Covid-19 cases.
Speaking at the daily government briefing this afternoon, the prime minister reintroduced stricter social distancing measures after nearly 3,000 people tested positive for the virus in one day.
Most of the new rules will come into force on Monday, September 14, and anyone caught breaking them could be fined.
• Social gatherings
The main area of focus was social gatherings and the number of people allowed to socialise together both indoors and outdoors has been reduced from 30 down to just six.
Up until Monday you can meet with a maximum of 30 people from two separate households or six from multiple households outdoors.
Some places are exempt from the new restrictions such as gatherings for work or education, weddings, funerals, and organised team sport – though groups of up to six must not mix or form larger groups there.
Households and support bubbles or more than six people are also exempt. However, restaurants, pubs, shops and other venues can only be attended in groups of up to six people.
Gatherings or more than six can be broken up by police according to the new measures and people can be fined for failing to follow the rules – £100 for a first offence, then doubling on each further offence up to £3,200.
• Test and Trace
From Friday, September 18, onwards it will be mandatory for certain businesses to have a system in place for collecting NHS Test and Trace data.
They must keep it for 21 days and core Covid secure requirements will be mandatory for hospitality businesses with breaches being enforced.
• Curfew
Despite rumours that there would be a 10pm curfew introduced, Mr Jonhson did not announce one this evening.
Sources at Number 10 confirmed that ministers were in discussions about imposing a night-time lockdown from 10pm to 5am, however it was not included in this evening’s address.
• Restriction enforcement
Another introduction will be a register of newly qualified and recently retired Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) so that local authorities can recruit more quickly and fill any gaps.
Covid-19 Secure Marshalls will also be brought in to help local authorities support social distancing in towns and city centres.
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