Government guidance COVID-19 response – summer 2021

Yesterday evening, without pre-empting this final decision, the Prime Minister confirmed plans for step 4, to allow businesses and the public as much time as possible to prepare.

He announced that when England moves to step 4 of the roadmap, the Government will continue to manage the risk of serious illness from the spread of the virus. This will mark a new phase in the Government’s response to the pandemic, moving away from stringent restrictions on everyone’s day-to-day lives, towards advising people on how to protect themselves and others, alongside targeted interventions to reduce risk.

To do this, the Government will:

1. Reinforce the country’s vaccine wall of defence through booster jabs and driving take up.
2. Enable the public to make informed decisions through guidance, rather than laws.
3. Retain proportionate test, trace and isolate plans in line with international comparators.
4. Manage risks at the border and support a global response to reduce the risk of variants emerging globally and entering the UK.
5. Retain contingency measures to respond to unexpected events, while accepting that further cases, hospitalisations and deaths will occur as the country learns to live with COVID-19.

The full detail, including the social distancing review report, is available on gov.uk.