Covid UK: Government plan could mean we wear masks and socially distance for next FIVE winters

Britons could be wearing masks and social distancing for next five winters under a new plan for life after July 19.

Health officials are said to have drafted a five-year plan with options for what freedom-limiting restrictions can be freely reimposed should cases spike again.

Mandatory working from home, enforced mask wearing and limits on indoor gatherings could come back in the winter if the number of hospitalisations increases at a time when the NHS is already under pressure, reports suggest. 

The move would risk a rebellion from backbench Tory MPs eager for life to return to normal.

It comes in spite of Britain’s vaccination drive keeping hospital admissions low – with data showing jabs make Covid nothing more than a ‘bad cold’.

Boris Johnson today warned that there may be ‘some extra precautions’ still in place after England’s delayed ‘Freedom Day’. 

The Prime Minister will ‘be setting out in the course of the next few days what step four will look like exactly’ as England prepares for the final stage of its roadmap to freedom. 

The Department of Health’s top civil servant Chris Wormald is believed to be confident that new Health Secretary Sajid Javid will get behind a five year plan, despite his pledge to fully lift restrictions this month.

Department of Health officials were said to be ‘livid’ with Mr Javid’s ‘no going back’ attitude because it doesn’t account for potential spikes in data.

They believe that flexibility over Covid regulations could avoid another country-wide lockdown, The Mirror reports.

Current data suggests that the vaccine is playing a key role in keeping the number of hospital admissions low, even as cases soar.

Labour MPs are urging winter plans to be revealed to the public. A Department of Health spokesperson denied that such a plan exists.

 Ministers are on track to hit their target of inoculating two-thirds of the country with both doses by July 19, with data suggesting they only need to dish out another 125,000 second jabs.

While Britain’s daily Covid cases spiked 68 per cent in a week today to 27,989, hospital rates are running at one tenth of the level they were at the same time during the second wave.

Despite the country recording its highest number of new infections in a single 24-hour period in five months, daily deaths only nudged up five per cent with another 22 victims registered. 

Latest Department of Health data shows that 259 people were admitted to hospital with the disease on June 27, which was technically a quarter more than last Thursday but still a far cry from levels seen during previous waves.

For comparison, the last time the country was recording similar levels of infection and the outbreak was growing  was at the start of December, when there were more than 2,000 admissions every day.

The disparity between rising infection numbers and flatlining death and hospitalisation figures bolsters Boris Johnson’s comments today that the vaccination drive has ‘broken the link’ between surging cases and deaths.  

Mr Johnson was asked whether the final easing of rules will include getting rid of face masks and social distancing.

He replied: ‘I know how impatient people are to get back to total normality as indeed am I and we will be setting out, I will be setting out in the course of the next few days what step four will look like exactly.

‘But I think I have said it before, we will be wanting to go back to a world that is as close to the status quo, ante Covid as possible.

‘Try to get back to life as close to it was before Covid but there may be some things we have to do and some extra precautions that we have to take, but I will be setting all of that out.’ 

Data from the UK’s largest symptom tracking study found that even though an increasing number of people are getting infected with the disease the jabs have turned Covid into a ‘bad cold’.

Professor Tim Spector, the eminent King’s College London epidemiologist who runs the project, said: ‘While rates of Covid infection are high, it’s reassuring to see vaccinations protecting the vulnerable and deaths remain very low.’ 

More than 44.8million Britons — or 85.2 per cent of adults — have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine after 141,216 jabs were administered yesterday. And more than 33million — or 62.7 per cent — have got both doses after a further 175,749 were administered on Wednesday.

Ministers are on track to hit their target of inoculating two-thirds of the country with both doses by July 19, with data suggesting they only need to dish out another 125,000 second jabs.  

Separate data from Public Health England today showed infections among young people are now 15 times higher than in the over-60s, who have all been offered two doses of the vaccine. Among under-30s the rate is 424.3 cases per 100,000 people, but for older adults it is 16.2 per 100,000.

Only one of 149 local authorities in England — former Indian ‘Delta’ variant hotspot Blackburn with Darwen — saw its Covid cases fall in the week ending June 27, the latest available.

Scientists say the Indian variant, releasing lockdown measures, Euro 2020 tournament and a boom in staycations have all led to spiralling cases, with the third wave of infections likely to continue ‘for longer than expected’.