Earlier this week, the Prime Minister confirmed that restrictions will continue to be eased in England from Monday, 17th May.
Dr Matt Tyrer, Director of Public Health for Cheshire East Council said: "As we progress through step 3 of the government's roadmap out of lockdown, we must not forget how hard we've all worked, and the many sacrifices we've all made to get to this stage."
As part of step 3 from Monday 17th May:
- You can socialise indoors in a group of up to six people or two households, including overnight stays
- You can meet with up to 30 people outside
- Indoor hospitality venues, such as restaurants, pubs, bars and cafes will reopen – though you will need to remain seated while eating and drinking
- Indoor entertainment and attractions such as cinemas, theatres, concert halls, bowling alleys, casinos, amusement arcades, museums and children's indoor play areas will be permitted to open with Covid-secure measures in place
- You can attend indoor and outdoor events, including live performances, sporting events and business events. Attendance at these events will be capped according to venue type, and you should follow the Covid-secure measures set out by those venues
- Organised indoor sport will be able to take place for all (this includes gym classes)
- All holiday accommodation in England will be open – such as hotels and B&Bs. These can be used by groups of up to six people or two households.
There are also changes for secondary school and higher education. Secondary school pupils will no longer have to wear face coverings in classrooms or communal areas and higher education students can access in-person teaching.
Care home residents will be allowed up to five named visitors (two at any one time) meaning that they will be able to see more of their relatives and friends. This is subject to visitors testing negative for Covid-19.
There are changes to the number of people allowed to attend a funeral. It will be determined by how many people the Covid-secure venue can safely accommodate with social distancing, with limits at other life events, such as weddings and wakes, increasing to 30 people.
There will no longer be a legal restriction to international travel. However, you must follow the rules when returning to England depending on whether you return from a red, amber or green list country.
Dr Matt Tyrer, went on to say: "I'd like to thank residents for their hard work in driving infection rates in Cheshire East down and thank all our volunteers who have worked tirelessly in supporting residents, through their work with the council and local NHS services.
"In Cheshire East there have been just 14 new cases per 100,000 recorded across in the latest seven days. This means that locally we are in a strong position to enter step 3 of the roadmap, however despite this we all must remain vigilant and work hard to not let this virus regain a stronghold in our borough."
Cheshire East Council leader, Councillor Sam Corcoran said "We have a fully rounded locally-delivered service available to allow us to continue to fight this deadly virus, but we can't do this alone – we need your continued help:
Get tested regularly to identify any new cases;Work with our local contact tracing team if you test positive and;Self -isolate if needed - If you need help to stick to the rules of self-isolation, our local team will be there to support you.
"You can keep yourself, loved ones and other members of the public safe by wearing a face covering where necessary, making sure you sanitise their hands and maintaining social distancing. And there is less risk of spreading or catching the virus outside, in the open air.
"By working together, we stand the greatest chance of being able to keep Covid at bay – together we can do this, it's in our hands."
Cheshire East Council deputy leader, Councillor Craig Browne said "The latest easing of restrictions is great news for local businesses and recreation venues. They have been working extremely hard to prepare for their reopening, in line with the government's Covid secure measures to keep residents as safe as possible.
"But residents also have a hugely important role to play. They can relieve some of the pressure facing local businesses, by being responsible and adhering to the measures the business has in place. These simple actions will reduce the risk of infection and possible enforcement action."
Comments
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It doesn’t make sense to me
People can meet in groups of up to 30 outdoors
Six people or two households can meet indoors and overnight stays can take place
that they expected the pandemic to be "over" in the UK by the year end. At that stage he had known for 2 weeks that the scarient was in our country. Call me cynical but I hope (but am disappointed nonetheless) that this scaremongering has been ramped up to deter any Vax refusniks and get us all jabbed. I have every confidence in our vaccines as the eventual route out of this horror . But the Government DO need to lay off the amateurish psyops.
David Morgan of UCL is now coming out publicy detailing the intense fearmongering he helped Sage deploy last year to frighten the public into compliance. He now says he feels ashamed and that the psychologists advising Vallance's SPI B went too far and it became a form of mind bending or psychological coercion. However I wish our newspaper editors would demonstrate the same remorse. Yesterday the Mail had the frothing fear (with a nice side order of racism) ratcheted up to 90 whereas the Telegraph and Independent plus Times had more cautioned slightly measured headlines. Today the reverse. The Mail has more caution and nuanced optimism and the Telegraph is full on "End of the World scary variant". This is not balanced and many of us see through the pathetic clickbait but the constant yoyo of good news/bad news is having a detrimental affect on the more fragile and susceptible in our midst...it is very cruel.
Many will say block news sites which is a tip but even the dulcet melodies from Classic FM stop for news breaks, also people (quite rightly) wish to make tentative forward plans and thus need to keep abreast of this "roadmap". Thank goodness there are still decent objective journalists like Lisa Reeves out here as now the vast bulk of journos' or hacks are dangling the mental health of this country as a cat dangles and toys with a mouse it is not good.
Apart from also carrying the words 'HM Government', which is puzzling, in a prominent position on the front of the leaflet are the words 'European Union, European Regional Development Fund' and the EU flag.
Why? We are no longer enchained to that organisation so why is our council and apparently central government, allowing them to be represented on this pamphlet?
Perhaps the Brexit refuseniks at Cheshire East can dry their faces and admit we are flourishing outside of the EU.
And how you can say "we are flourishing outside the EU" can only be because brexit appears to be for many a belief system based on faith rather than a rationally thought-through stance based on facts and knowledge. The damage wrought by brexit is massive, far reaching, and largely unreported by the same brexit-supporting media that failed to call out the brexit lies and still fail to call out Johnsons shameless lying now as in the Hartlepool incident. We know about the fishermen who were warned of the consequences of our making ourselves a 'third country' but put the warnings into a box marked 'Project Fear'. Well, the lid is well and truly off that box and the brexit chickens are coming home to roost. The fisherman's sad situation is just one of thousands up and down the country.
To get back to covid recovery, ask yourself why Johnson dithered over putting India on the travel red list when medics and scientists were shouting loud warnings about the covid variation of concern there? When the variant of concern became known in India, Johnson put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the travel red list. Not India. Seventeen days later Johnson bowed to increasing pressure and eventually put India onto the red list as well.
Why the delay? Why the prevarication? Why the apparent dithering? It was because Johnson wanted to keep Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sweet to maximise the chance of a favourable trade deal with India. Why is that so important? It's because since our ludicrous withdrawal from the Customs Union and the EU we have a big hole in our trade that's killing our economy. We are desperate, having turned our back on the massive trading bloc of the EU right on our doorstep, to scrabble for anything to fill the void. We have demoted ourselves from a being a leading member of a world power base to becoming a backwards insignificant world laughing stock. Friends and colleagues abroad cannot believe what we did to ourselves, and all engineered by a few far-right Tories who stand to gain.
So all those extra infections, possible deaths, and ruined holiday plans caused the Indian variant of C19 being freely allowed into the UK during those 17 days of prevarication are yet another manifestation of the self-inflicted disaster for Britain that is brexit.
One day it will be corrected but not for while yet. For one thing, the EU would never re-admit us until we showed ourselves to be a grown-up country. Looking at our behaviour and our blaming the EU instead of ourselves for the Northern Ireland problem and pretty much every other problem we brought on ourselves by leaving the Customs Union, there's not much sign of that yet. We need to face up to what we did and accept that actions have consequences rather than blaming others for our own doing. Only then will we have any chance of returning to being the nation we were. The nation we should be.
Brexit - the gift that just keeps on giving.
1) The success of our vaccine programme has EVERYTHING to do with our leaving the dreaded EU. If we had still been in the EU, we would have been sitting in a queue, along with the 27 other countries waiting for the EU "leader" Ursula von der Leyen's instructions ..... waiting and waiting and waiting.
("leader" in her case is a joke anyway ..... she couldn't lead a dog for a walk)
We decided to leave the European Medicines Agency group and do the vaccination programme ourselves ..... thank God we did.
Look at the mess the EU are in by sticking with von der Leyen and her EMA.
Other EU members could NOT do the same as they were told to keep within the EU block and arrange things together ..... what a joke that's been.
Do you mean "Left-Wing" MP Justin Madders complaining to the "Left-Wing" BBC about Boris Johnson ..... you're having a laugh, aren't you ?
Is this the same BBC that recently announced Sir James Dyson was a prominent Tory supporter ? ..... Funny how Sir James has stated this is factually incorrect.
Also funny how the BBC admitted they were wrong but managed to hide their apology by tucking it away on their News Online Corrections Page.
The Electoral Commission (notoriously pro-remain and a Boris hater) recently announced, with BBC fanfare and support, they were going to investigate Boris and his Downing Street redecorating programme, but yet despite this, Boris has still managed to have a huge success in Hartlepool and many other councils around the country.
Yes, Boris does tell lies. Something not admirable when Prime Minister, but, despite all that, he's a success ..... He's a Winner !!!
The MSM loathe Boris and will do anything and everything to smear him.
Labour's Tony Blair spent the equivalent of £400,000 on his redecorating.
Labour's Lord Derry Irving spent £650,000 on his redecorating, all paid for by the taxpayer, but yet vey little said about that, or Blair's ?
Maybe the cost of the inquiry will cost more than Boris's refurbishment ?
You say we're turning our back on the EU ? ..... The EU never liked us and most of the 27 were envious as to what we are capable of.
The EU have gone out of their way to be deceitful and spiteful and are downright shysters when it comes to dealings with the UK.
Why ? ..... because we have the audacity to leave them and set up on our own.
Yes, the UK fishing is a fiasco at the moment, but that is down to Theresa Useless May (a remainer, if you hadn't noticed) dithering and floundering when she was "leader" (another "leader" joke) and Boris had very little option when time was running out.
I agree Northern Ireland is still a problem and must be sorted out somehow.
(Goodness knows how ..... too complicated for my pay-grade)
Remember Project Fear ? ..... well, that hasn't happened has it.
However, in terms of the UK and the Brexit implications, at least we have now left the backward-looking European Union and can look forward to huge successes long-term. For the immediate future, Coronavirus restrictions have hampered things somewhat but once businesses return to normal we will become strong again.
As for your comment "one day it will be corrected" ? How negative you are !
Do you honestly think this country would ever vote to rejoin the EU after the way they've treated us and shown their true colours ?
Absolutely no chance ..... ever !!
Since we commenced on our vaccination program while we were an EU state, how could leaving the EU have possibly enabled it?
This allowed us to do our own thing, without requiring approval from the EU.
Hence, we spent absolute fortunes on our Oxford Astra-Zeneca programme in conjunction with our own Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, as opposed to the EU relying on their European Medicines Agency.
As stated earlier, the EU insisted all 27 countries work together on the coronavirus programme. If we'd still been an EU member, we would have had to conform also.
Any EU state (which WE were back then) could have done exactly the same. It did not require EU approval.
I say again, our successful vaccination program has nothing whatever to do with us leaving the EU.
This is what we used:
"Under European law a vaccine must be authorised by the EMA, but individual countries can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.
Britain is still subject to those EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period which runs until the end of the year.
The UK's own medicines regulator, the MHRA, confirmed this in a statement last month.
And its chief executive, Dr June Raine, said on Wednesday that "we have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law".
Please Google the question as you'll get the following answer ;
(not my words, but official words from the Government)
When did the United Kingdom leave the European Union?
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021.
By my score I make it 1 - 0 to Vince.
If only there was such a thing as VAR. That would clear every thing up !!!
..... "In that election, Conservatives who campaigned in support of a "revised" withdrawal agreement led by Boris Johnson won an overall majority of 80 seats. After the December 2019 election, the British Parliament finally ratified the withdrawal agreement. The UK left the EU at the end of 31 January 2020 CET (11 p.m. GMT)"
Let me repeat ;
THE UK LEFT THE EU AT THE END OF 31st JANUARY 2020 !
What do you not to understand about that statement ?
Google it and if you see a different answer, please show it ?
"The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021."
OK?
Moving on however, the vaccination programme here in the UK has been an absolute success, compare to the deceitful and depressing European Union, especially as they have the audacity to want to sue Astra-Zeneca for lack of vaccines ? ..... the very vaccines they complained about and didn't want ?
(you just couldn't make this up) !
More good news ..... Britain's goods trade with Europe continued a rapid recovery in March, with exports to the bloc jumping a further 8.6% to hit pre-Brexit levels.
More good news ..... Elon Musk visited the UK last weekend, with the possibility of building a new car factory and possibly building batteries here in the UK.
So, just a snippet of good positive news for the United Kingdom, with a great future ahead for us !