The Government has announced that London and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire will be moved into Tier 3 restrictions on Wednesday following a sharp rise in cases.
Schools in England will be allowed to close a day early on December 18 to allow “six clear days” before Christmas Eve, and several London boroughs are asking schools to end term early.
When schools reopened in September the government published 25,000 words of guidance explaining how schoolchildren and staff should be kept safe.
– PM urges people to ‘minimise contact’ today if they’re forming a Christmas bubble
Boris Johnson has just tweeted a message people urging them to start cutting down on seeing people from outside their household, if they are going to take advantage of the Christmas rules relaxation.
If you are forming a Christmas Bubble, it’s vital that from today, you minimise contact with people from outside your household.
Everyone must take personal responsibility to avoid passing the virus on to loved ones this Christmas.https://t.co/dpk4hK17xs
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 18, 2020
– Half of adults are planning to form a Christmas bubble, ONS finds
This compared to 38% who said they were not planning to form a bubble over the festive period and 12% who said they did not know, according to an ONS survey between December 10 and 13.
The survey also showed that just over half (56%) of adults in Great Britain reported they felt it was very easy or easy to understand rules for forming a Christmas bubble.
The ONS said this understanding seemed to increase with age, with 48% of those aged between 16 and 29 reporting this, compared with 55% of adults aged 30 to 49, 58% of 50 to 69-year-olds and 61% of people aged 70 years and over.
