Boris Johnson will share the government’s latest coronavirus data with the nation tomorrow, and is expected to confirm the next phase of easing restrictions on 19 July, according to vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi.
Appearing on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Mr Zahawi revealed guidance will include being “expected to wear masks in indoor enclosed places” – even though the legal requirement to do so would be dropped.
Meanwhile, the government’s Test and Trace service is “panicking” as it rushes to fill thousands of vacant contact tracing positions – just months after making thousands of clinical staff redundant – amid fears a summer wave of coronavirus will see a 100,000 infections a day.
Under the plans, the new recruits will have no clinical training and be paid at substantially cheaper rates compared to the nurses and other clinical staff who were made redundant en masse in May, as test and trace bosses said demand on the service had reduced.
A further 26 deaths and 31,772 daily cases were reported on Sunday, according to official data.
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