Boris Johnson reveals England’s Covid lockdown roadmap – here’s how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will open up
BORIS Johnson has today revealed how England will come out of the Covid lockdown.
The Prime Minister gave a string of dates to open up nightclubs, pubs and hairdressers after the nation has spent months in lockdown.
🦠 Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates...
So how is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland planning to get out of their lockdowns?
Scotland
Scotland's youngest pupils returned to the classroom for the first time since the Christmas break today as part of a phased reopening of schools.
It is one of the first moves that have been made to lift lockdown in Scotland after the harsh restrictions were put into place.
And Nicola Sturgeon today confirmed
The First Minister will address the Scottish Parliament with an update on the pandemic and about 2.20pm.
The FM will announce Scotland's planned exit from lockdown and set out an "indicative order of priority" of the easing of restrictions.
The Ministerial Statement will also outline plans to return to the Tier system which means specific geographic levels of restrictions.
But the FM told Scots it will be a "cautious" easing of restrictions with a "sure and steady" approach to prevent another lockdown being required.
Saying the moves would be "slow and stead", she added: "We will seek to set out tomorrow an indicative order of priority and the likely phasing of firstly the gradual lifting of the current lockdown restrictions and then in due course a return to the geographic levels system."
Wales
Covid forced Wales into lockdown on December 20, with moves now starting to be made to get the country back to normal.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said Wales was seeing "encouraging green shoots" after the spike in cases.
From today, February 22, children aged three to seven will begin returning to schools in a phased way.
Meanwhile, over the weekend, four people from two different households were able to meet outdoors for socially distanced local exercise.
However, people are still not allowed to drive to exercise - with Mr Drakeford saying: "it does mean exercise, not socialising".
From March 1, licensed wedding venues, such as visitor attractions and hotels, will be allowed to re-open but only to perform wedding and civil partnership ceremonies.
It is now hoped that the opening of businesses including shops and hairdressers, will be reviewed by the middle of March while it is hoped people will be able to go on holiday for Easter.
There is no news yet on when and how pubs, restaurants and cafes will be able to reopen.
The rules will be reviewed in three weeks.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland was put back into lockdown on Boxing Day, with hopes the strict rules would be lifted on February 6.
However, the restrictions were recently extended until March as the battle against Covid continues.
Now, the lockdown is expected to continue to at least April, with a review expected on March 18.
Some moves towards relaxing lockdown in the country have already been made.
Primary school pupils in year groups P1 to P3 are expected to return to face-to-face learning on March 8.
On March 22, secondary pupils in key exam years - year groups 12 to 14 - will return to school.
At Thursday's Executive meeting, ministers agreed to make relaxations to allow "click and collect" shopping from some outlets previously categorised as non-essential retailers.
Most read in News
First Minister Arlene Foster said last week that lifting the lockdown was "not possible at this time".
READ MORE SUN STORIES
She said: "We are now at a time for patience and persistence.
"We must dig in and secure the position we hold and then to slowly move forward."
