Covid news - live: Boris Johnson reveals end of lockdown roadmap as Whitty backs five-week gap between stages

Snap polls from YouGov also show broad public support for details of the roadmap, with 63 per cent in favour of schools reopening on 8 March and 78 per cent in the loosening of social restrictions on 29 March.

And while a quarter of people surveyed thought it went too fast, nearly half said it was “about right”.

A snap poll has found that more than half (52 per cent) of English adults say they are satisfied with Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown, with 17 per cent saying they are dissatisfied.

Almost half (45 per cent) say the plans are “cautious”, compared to three in 10 (31 per cent) who describe the plans as “about right” and one in five (19 per cent) who say it’s “reckless”.

According to the poll, by Savanta ComRes, two in five (42 per cent) people say that schools reopening on 8 March is too early, with a similar proportion (43 per cent) saying it’s about right. However, almost half (46 per cent) support all pupils going back to school rather than a phased return for younger pupils or those studying exams.

Around a third (33 per cent) oppose the plans to reopen schools for all.

Around 32 per cent of the public feel the date for non-essential retail reopening (12 April) is too late, versus 19 per cent who say it is too early.

But for nearly all specific plans, between two in five and half (42 per cent - 52 per cent) of the public say the government is getting the timing about right. The only exception are holidays abroad, which may be able to resume from 17 May - 44 per cent say this is too early while 36 per cent say it is about right.

People are most looking forward to the reintroduction of the rule of six outdoors (17 per cent), followed by reopening pubs and restaurants (13 per cent) and close-contact personal services and the prospect of foreign holidays (11 per cent each).

Former Tory health minister Jackie Doyle-Price claimed “lockdowns don’t work” as she urged the government to relax restrictions faster.

The MP for Thurrock told the Commons: “My fundamental concern is that with each day that goes by, we really must make sure we lift those restrictions as soon as possible, because the truth of the matter is no government should restrict the rights and liberties of its subjects without being able to demonstrate the outcome - and I’m afraid demonstrating the effectiveness of these lockdowns has been rather poor.

“There is no evidence that the curfew saved any lives, we know there’s been two per cent of transmission for what are now Covid-secure venues.

“We know that when we went into November lockdown we came out with higher rates because schools remained open and they were the agents of transmission into people’s households and into people’s businesses.

“The truth is lockdowns don’t work, but we have the key to deal with this virus through the vaccinations, and I think this government needs to be much more ambitious than the route map that’s been laid before us today in order that we take full advantage of that to secure our freedom again.”

Face coverings may be necessary in certain situations next winter, even after all the UK’s adults have been vaccinated, Boris Johnson’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance has warned.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty also said that infections and deaths from Covid-19 can be expected to continue for years into the future.

Our Political Editor Andrew Woodcock has more on this story:

The prime minister may have finally learned the lesson “slow and steady wins the race” after the headlong rush into reopening shops and restaurants last year which set the foundations for a second wave of Covid-19 infections that left the UK with one of the worst death rates from the virus in the world.

Our health correspondent Shaun Lintern writes: “In reality, Boris Johnson had little choice but to take this slower approach. The brutal reality of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is that it will take advantage of any gap in infection control measures…”

Read the rest of his analysis here:

The prime minister said he could not guarantee the four-stage road map for ending restrictions in England was irreversible but that is what the government intended.

Boris Johnson said: “I can’t guarantee it’s going to be irreversible, but the intention is that it should be irreversible.

“That’s why we’re going in the way that we are and that’s why we’re taking the steps that we are.”

He said the five-week interval between each step was needed to ease restrictions cautiously, adding: “This disease is capable, as we have seen, this variant is capable of spreading really very fast when you unlock - we saw that in the end of last year, in January.”

Professor Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has expressed concerns that relaxing restrictions too much in the middle of the year may leave the UK “wide open for new vaccine escape variants to arrive” and cause another wave of infections in September.

Commenting on Boris Johnson’s roadmap to lifting restrictions today, Prof Hibberd said: “Looking at the modelling (released by SAGE today), I have a worry that September this year will be very similar to September last year.  With some luck, I think we may escape the predicted huge increase in cases in June and July (thanks to the vaccines being better than we thought), but if we do, we will end up too relaxed and then be wide open for new vaccine escape variants to arrive and drive up the cases for September.

“Just as last year, we need to be planning to get test and trace to work (preferably by returning it to PHE, NHS and local government) during the (hopefully) quiet summer months, so that any new upturn in cases can be quickly spotted and averted (without the need for lock downs again next winter).

“Where is the planning to make us resilient to future outbreaks?  If we don’t do it now, it will certainly be forgotten by the time we need it.”

Boris Johnson assured the nation there is enough vaccination supply to get every adult the first dose of the coronavirus jab by the end of July.

He told the Downing Street briefing: “We’ve got to make sure that we have the supply in place for everybody to get their second vaccination within 12 weeks, as well as giving every adult, as we said already, a vaccination by the end of July.

“We do believe we have the supplies in place to keep up that rhythm and that timetable.

“And we’re looking the whole time to source more where we can from our suppliers according to the contracts that we’ve already signed.”

He said the UK will support vaccination efforts around the world, adding: “There’s no point in having a vaccination programme that is simply confined to one country, it’s a global pandemic we need a global vaccination programme.”