Extremely vulnerable being shielded may be freed from lockdown ‘relatively soon’

Boris Johnson announced that small social gatherings will be permitted outside in England from Monday, as long as people from separate households remain at a distance of two metres.

But there was no easing the measures for the more than one million people deemed “extremely clinically vulnerable” to Covid-19 because of their health conditions.

Chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty offered the prospect at the Downing Street briefing on Thursday that infection levels may be low enough for them to leave home shortly.

“And we will get to a stage, we hope relatively soon, where the absolute risk of people has gone down to a low enough level it will be possible in stages for people to leave shielding,” he said.

Prof Whitty stressed that it was number of infections that need to come down rather than the “R” rate of transmission in order to reduce the risk of infection to the vulnerable.

The Prime Minister was asked about the subject by 33-year-old mother Jay, who is shielding with her 10-year-old son, who she has had to prevent from staying with his father.

She wanted to know what was being done to ease the lockdown for them and others in their situation because “I feel as if we’ve been forgotten”.

The PM said: “We want to release you from your captivity, your lockdown as fast as we possibly can.

“But we need to get that R down, we need to get the infection rate down so that Jay, everybody who is being shielded now, can be released.”

For much of the rest of society in England, Mr Johnson said they can meet in groups of up to six people outside providing they can stick to social-distancing rules.

This will include private gardens as well as public parks, as schools begin to reopen.