England prepares to ease the compulsory wearing of Face Masks and make “personal choice” a senior UK government announced today (04).
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick told Sky News: “I don’t particularly want to wear a mask, I don’t think a lot of people enjoy doing it.
“We will be moving into a phase though, where there will be matters of personal choice and so some members of society will want to do so for perfectly legitimate reasons, but it will be a different period where we as private citizens make these judgments rather than the government telling you what to do,” Jenrick added.
The UK government is currently considering whether to lift all remaining restrictions on social contact on July 19. The government’s new Health Secretary Sajid Javid has signalled he would like to ease coronavirus restrictions.
“We are on track for July 19 and we have to be honest with people about the fact that we cannot eliminate Covid,” Javid wrote in an article for the Mail on Sunday newspaper this weekend.
“We also need to be clear that cases are going to rise significantly. I know many people will be cautious about the easing of restrictions — that’s completely understandable. But no date we choose will ever come without risk, so we have to take a broad and balanced view. We are going to have to learn to accept the existence of Covid and find ways to cope with it — just as we already do with flu.”
Javid said the “rules that we have had to put in place have caused a shocking rise in domestic violence and a terrible impact on so many people’s mental health.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reviewing “very positive” data ahead of his decision on the next step in England’s coronavirus roadmap, Jenrick told Sky News.
“It does seem as if we can now move forward and move to a much more permissive regime where we move away from many of those restrictions that have been so difficult for us,” he added.
Despite being criticized for being slow to lock down and require mask-wearing at the start of the pandemic, the UK has since been heralded for its Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
However, the doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) has urged the government to keep some Covid-safe measures in place after July 19 in England amid a rise in case numbers.
