{"id":5137,"date":"2020-09-22T13:43:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T12:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/?p=5137"},"modified":"2020-11-19T10:52:14","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T10:52:14","slug":"new-covid-19-restrictions-announced-by-pm-22-09-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/new-covid-19-restrictions-announced-by-pm-22-09-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"New COVID-19 Restrictions Announced by PM &#8211; 22\/09\/2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">22nd September 2020<\/p>\n<p>Speaking before the House of Commons this afternoon, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the growing threat of COVID-19 and announced a series of new measures\/ restrictions that are to be enforced in the coming days to tackle the rising R number, while keeping the economy as open as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson said the UK was at a &#8220;perilous turning point&#8221; with the daily average number of people testing positive for COVID-19 almost quadrupling to 3,929 compared to a month prior. The PM warned that if necessary measures were not taken the country could see &#8220;tens of thousands of new infections next month&#8221;. Thus new restrictions have been deemed vital to fight the rising rate of infection.<\/p>\n<h3>The PM announced the following measures\/ restrictions today:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Office workers who &#8220;can&#8221; work from home should do so. In key public services and professions where working from home is not possible, such as construction and retail, &#8220;people should continue to attend their workplaces&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>From Thursday 24th September &#8211; all pubs, bars and restaurants must operate solely on a table service basis (except for takeaways), and all hospitality businesses must close at 10pm.<\/li>\n<li>The requirement to wear face-coverings is to be extended to include staff in retail, taxis and private hire vehicles and staff and customers in indoor hospitality services &#8211; except from when seated at a table to eat or drink.<\/li>\n<li>In retail, leisure, tourism and other sectors the government&#8217;s COVID secure guidelines will become &#8220;legal obligations&#8221; &#8211; businesses may be closed or fined if found in breach of the rules.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Tighten up the &#8216;rule of six'&#8221; &#8211; From Monday 28th September a max of 15 people will be allowed to attend wedding ceremonies and receptions. Although up to 30 people are still permitted to attend funerals. The &#8216;rule of six&#8217; is to be extended to all indoor adult team sports.<\/li>\n<li>Business conferences, exhibitions and large sporting events will NOT be able to reopen from the 1st October 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Such rules will also be enforced with tighter penalties:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Fines of up to \u00a310,000 for those who fail to self isolate &#8211; such fines will now be applied to businesses deemed in breach of COVID rules.<\/li>\n<li>The penalty for not wearing a mask or breaking the &#8216;rule of six&#8217; will now double to \u00a3200 for a first offence.<\/li>\n<li>There will also be a greater police presence on the streets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The measures announced by Mr Johnson today apply to England, however the PM stated that the devolved governments will be taking &#8220;similar steps&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Greater restrictions can be expected if such measures are not able to bring the R number below 1.<\/p>\n<p>Unless significant progress is made, today&#8217;s restrictions could remain in place for up to 6 months.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>22nd September 2020 Speaking before the House of Commons this afternoon, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the growing threat of COVID-19 and announced a series of new measures\/ restrictions that are to be enforced in the coming days to tackle the rising R number, while keeping the economy as open as possible. Mr Johnson said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[35,48,29,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5137"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15514,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5137\/revisions\/15514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.testingforall.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}