Outdoor family gatherings could be allowed within weeks as lockdown eases

Downing Street said it wanted to make social contact easier as soon as possible as Prime Minister Boris Johnson spends the weekend finalising plans for relaxing measures in England.

Several newspapers reported that new rules allowing two households to meet outdoors – regardless of the total number of people – are set to be introduced from April, while six people from six different households would also be able to gather.

Number 10 dismissed as speculation reports that pubs could be permitted to serve customers outdoors from April, with Daily Mail saying that people could be served indoors in May.

Schools look set to reopen to all pupils from March 8, with both primary and secondaries said to return in just over three weeks.

The move comes despite a coalition of education unions and professional bodies warning that a full return of all pupils would be a “reckless” course of action.

A relaxation of the rules around care home visits has been given a cautious welcome by the sector, with calls for clarification on the details of the new arrangements.

Care home residents will be allowed to hold hands with a regular indoor visitor from March 8 under the Government’s plan to ease lockdown restrictions in England.

Mr Johnson will set out the blueprint for relaxing measures in England on Monday – the final details of which will be agreed at a meeting of the “Covid O” committee today, February 21.

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The Prime Minister will then chair a meeting of his Cabinet tomorrow, before announcing the plans to the Commons later that afternoon.

He is expected to lead a Downing Street press conference in the evening alongside England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

The relaxation comes amid a backdrop of promising data suggesting coronavirus infections are dropping across the UK.

Around one in 115 people in private households in England had Covid-19 between February 6 and 12, the Office for National Statistics said, down from around one in 80 people from January 31 to February 6.

READ: Wiltshire will not be Covid-19 hotspot in March, model predicts

The data, which does not cover care homes and hospitals, is based on swab tests from thousands of people regardless of whether or not they have symptoms.

Elsewhere, new analysis from Oxford University published in The Lancet confirmed that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine offers 76 per cent protection against Covid-19 from 22 days after vaccination, and that this had not waned by the three-month mark.

The UK policy of leaving up to 12 weeks between doses also resulted in a higher efficacy overall, the study found.