England will ease many of its remaining Covid-19 restrictions on 19 July when step four of the lockdown roadmap comes into effect.
“Freedom day” was initially set to fall on Monday 21 June, but Boris Johnson announced that the lifting of the rules would be delayed by four weeks following the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
There were initially hopes that the easing could be brought forward to 5 July, but these were dashed as numbers of new coronavirus cases continued to rise.
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However, the Health Secretary Sajid Javid promised MPs on Monday 28 June: “Whilst we decided not to bring forward step four, we see no reason to go beyond 19 July.”
Then in a subsequent announcement on 5 July, the Prime Minister conceded that the pandemic is “far from over” but insisted that 19 July remained a “propitious moment” to go ahead with easing the rules, despite case numbers continuing to rise – but what comes next?
