Government Announces First Steps to Easing Lockdown – But the Messaging Remains Confusing

By Tatiana Zaituni

In his speech to the nation last night, Boris Johnson outlined three ‘conditional’ steps that will lead to a ”roadmap to reopening society.”

The Prime Minister said you should go to work from home if you can and only go to work if you must.

This includes people who can not work from their home, such as manufacturers and construction workers.

However, according to the advice, you must avoid public transport at all cost.

Also outlined was a ‘COVID-19 monitoring system’ that will reveal ”how tough we have to be in our social distancing measures.”

The monitoring system is based on a series of steps that the UK will have to go through in order to return to some sense of normality.

With these steps, the PM said he hopes to reach ”the phase of reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back to schools at the earliest by June 1st”.

The next step beyond that would involve the reopening of some hospitality industry and other public places only if supported by a number of scientific advice- but not as early as July 1st.

He emphasised people must still obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules, the fines will increase for the small minority who break them.

The government has also introduced a new slogan to go with the new rules.

For a while, the official slogan was ‘Stay Home, protect the NHS, Save Lives’

However, the new slogan now reads ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’.

If all that sounded confusing, that’s because it was.

During and immediately after the conference, many people took to Twitter and online forums to voice their confusion over the rules as they were presented.

The Head West Yorkshire Police Federation, Brian Booth, tweeted his displeasure following the Prime Minister’s address to the nation.

He said his colleagues can’t ”Engage, Explain, Encourage or Enforce such woolly rules”

He tweeted: ”This is now down to the public to police itself. Please let’s avoid a second spike”.

Locals were left to question the impact of easing the lockdown around Yorkshire.

Further details about these new guidelines and alert system are expected to be published today.

The Prime Minister will also be hosting a Q&A press conference today at Downing Street.