Indoor gyms and swimming pools will be closed until April at least under the Government's roadmap out of lockdown, the Vaccine Minister has indicated.
Nadhim Zahawi confirmed that outdoor sport like football, golf, basketball and tennis will be allowed to return from March 29, three weeks after schools are set to reopen on March 8.
Mr Zahawi would not give a date for the return of indoor sport, which would allow gyms and swimming pools to reopen across the country for the first since the lockdown was implemented in England on January 5, although he did state that outdoor facilities will open before indoor gyms can.
“The simple way to look at this is that outdoor is safer and therefore we prioritise versus indoor,” he told LBC.
“Outdoor sports – tennis, golf, outdoor organised team sports, grassroots football – will go back on March 29.”
Pushed on when gyms and leisure centres could reopen, he added: “At the moment, it’s outdoors versus indoors. Outdoors is the priority because it’s where the transmission rates are much, much, much lower."
With outdoor facilities due to reopen in late March, Mr Zahawi's comments mean indoor gyms and pools are not set to reopen until April at the earliest.
Unlike the last lockdown, the measures will not be replaced by local tier restrictions.
Asked if the tier system would return, Mr Zahawi told LBC: “I think because the way this new variant actually took hold, which has become the dominant variant, the Kent variant, in the United Kingdom, infection rates around the country pretty much rose to similar, very high, unsustainable levels.
“So the view is very much that this is about a gradual reopening of the whole of England, not regional.”
Boris Johnson will announce England's roadmap out of lockdown in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will set out their own blueprints.
