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Hospitality firms urge Boris Johnson to stick to reopening roadmap
Under current plans pubs and restaurants will reopen for indoor service from 17 May (Getty Images)
Some of the UK’s biggest hospitality companies have urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “stick” to the current plan for easing lockdown restrictions.
In an open letter the pub and restaurant bosses said two-thirds of venues were unable to open outdoors from 12 April and “none is breaking even”.
They called on the prime minister to maintain the schedule for indoor reopening on 17 May, saying the roadmap should not be “derailed” by talk of vaccine passports.
There have been more calls for the official Covid symptoms list to be expanded.
Independent Sage, a group of scientists providing independent scientific advice to the UK government and public during the Covid-19 crisis, believe the symptoms list should be expanded.
The thinking goes that expanding the official list would not only raise awareness around the full list of possible Covid-19 symptoms, but also enable more people to access testing. If the public is more aware that mild signs such as a runny nose or sore throat could also signal Covid, people may also be more inclined to self isolate when feeling ill, rather than going about business as normal and potentially spreading the virus to others during its most infectious stage.
UPDATE: UK Testing, Tracing Increased Over South Africa Strain Spread
Mon, 1st Feb 2021 20:18
(Alliance News) - Coronavirus testers will go door-to-door in areas of England as part of an urgent effort to swab 80,000 people in an attempt to halt the spread of the South African strain.
Eleven cases of the variant have been identified over the last five or six days in people who have no links to travel – suggesting it may be spreading in communities.
Matt Hancock told a Downing Street press conference the stay at home message was particularly important in areas where the South African variant had been identified amid concerns that vaccines may have diminished effectiveness against the mutation.