1 - That’s still a no-go to sunny Spain
Matt Hancock signalled that there is little chance of quarantine rules forcing people into 14 days self-isolation if they return from travel abroad being lifted in time for Scottish school holidays.
The policy will be reviewed at the end of June, by which time Scottish schools will be out for the summer.
2 - Is for two metres
The two metres rule wills stay in place. Despite challenges, even from his own Tory MPs, and warnings from the hospitality industry that pubs and restaurants may be unable to reopen if the distance is not reduced Hancock would not budge on that either.
He said: “We keep the two-metre rule under review all the time and Sage have been doing some work on this recently. But, ultimately, it isn’t the rule that’s the challenge to the opening of hospitality in a safe way, it’s the virus.”
3 - Reality bites
Hancock said the “current working plan” was for secondary schools to fully reopen in England from September at the earliest, despite concerns about the two-metre rule making that difficult.
4 - Economy vs Health
Hancock argued that it is simplistic to say there is a trade off between health and the economy in coming out of lockdown early.
It is a matter of working out how to open in a way that does not lead to an increased spread of the virus, said the Health Secretary.
“That is going to require ingenuity, you can already see the ingenuity in lots of areas of the economy - bars that have turned themselves into takeaways, all sorts of different ways that people are providing services and making their business work in a way that is consistent with social distancing,” he said.
5 - Some of the numbers
The second day in a row of double digit death tolls ,not this low since the 22nd of March. 59 people died in England, no new deaths in London overnight and in Scotland and Northern Ireland not Covid-19 deaths in the last 48 hours and three fatalities in Wales.
This allowed the Health Secretary to trumpet to MPs in the Commons that “coronavirus is in retreat across the land”.
