Prime Minister Boris Johnson was at the Downing Street podium for the daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) news conference to update the nation on the Government's continued strategy to deal with the pandemic.
The Government are establishing a new Covid-19 Alert Level System with 5 levels relating to the level of threat posed by the virus. This is all informed by the 'R' value at any given time. The lower the 'R' level, the fewer the measures to contain the virus will be imposed by the state.
We have been at Level 4 thus far - meaning the pandemic is continuing to spread and lockdown measures have been required - however, we are now moving towards a level 3 situation with the hard work everyone has put in to follow the rules so far.
The Government have confirmed that it will be possible to continue to relax the measures and adjust the current social distancing measures as time goes on if the scientific evidence says it's safe to do so.
The first step in this reduction of the lockdown measures are as follows:
From this week, those who cannot work from home should speak to their employer about going back to work.
You can now spend time outside and exercise as much as you like - the once per day rule has been dropped.
You can meet one person from outside your own household in an open space as long as social distancing is observed.
The Prime Minister also laid out his plans for step 2 and step 3, which will hopefully be rolled out over the coming months if it is safe to do so. These steps involve beginning to reopen certain cultural and leisure facilities on a socially distanced basis.
But the message remains consistent - we need people to keep staying alert and keep staying at home as much as possible. That is the only way we're going to beat this virus in the long-run.
We can control the virus by keeping the 'R' figure down and reducing the number of infections so that we can all return to some sort of normality in our lives soon.
This is how we can save lives and restart our livelihoods.
Stay alert, control the virus, save lives.
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