Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
England (at least) is heading for a country wide lockdown for at least 4 weeks, excluding schools, from Thursday or Friday, from all I've seen, with cabinet committees meeting today and tomorrow.
Some bullet points from today's briefing from the Prime Minister. This has happened today as a result of the press reports today (and indeed here FT) speculating on what would have happened on Monday. The PM didn't want this to boil over into Sunday.
- All of England to go into Tier 4 from Thursday 5 November.
- This will last for 4 weeks as an objective (until 2 December), and then depending on infection levels, each part of England (by senior local authority area) will revert to an appropriate tier level.
- Tier 4 means that pubs, restaurants, non-essential shops and businesses will be closed. Hotels will be for essential travellers only. Non essential travel will be restricted, we will need to see the precise wording of the SI. Schools will remain open, higher education institutions will stay open.
- Rule of Six becomes the Rule of Two - and outdoors only - or the size of your household.
- There will be an overiding premise that non essential travel should stop, specifically for leisure purposes, other than household exercise. The idea is that people stay at home except for essential purposes.
- The Travel Corridor system seems moribund for new UK travellers since non essential travel is now restricted. Someone returning to the UK will be OK to use Travel Corridors but only if they did not leave England after Thursday. Travel is allowed for business travel and with it the Travel Corridors, but Tier 4 will stop much of white collar travel anyway.
- Discussions are going on with the Home Office for connecting intenrational passengers - HMG will want this to continue but there is a definition issue here so I wouldn't assume this will be OK unless it's for essential purposes.
I haven't seen any documents or briefings specifically advising against or prohibiting international leisure travel, we will need to wait a day or two to find out. My guess is that guidelines will prohibit international leisure travel but the law may not specifically say that. I know the travel industry is DMing the Transport Secretary at the moment.