"Never mind that masks don’t work, masking the healthy harms us all socially and psychologically: all mandates must end on June 21st", argues Dr Gary Sidley in a new piece marking the launch of the Smile Free campaign.
The Government is prioritising ending social distancing rules over those relating to face masks and work from home, and advisers have warned that unlocking will be a "gradual process" even if the June 21st date is met.
The Prime Minister has committed to announcing "by the end of the month" whether or not lockdown will come to an end on June 21st. He will provide more details on plans for vaccine passports at the same time.
Large events with no face masks and no social distancing are just as safe as dining at a restaurant or going shopping, preliminary data shows – so long as measures such as pre-entry Covid tests are in place.
The Indian variant has been used to justify the Government U-turning on ending mask-wearing in the classroom, with areas where the strain is more dominant having been told to keep to the mask mandate in place.
New York will conform with the latest CDC guidance and relax its mask mandate indoors. This relaxation will only apply to vaccinated New Yorkers holding vaccine passports.
Fears over the Indian Covid variant could delay key announcements from the Prime Minister on "social" distancing and vaccine passports as the Government needs more "time to assess the latest data".
Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of NERVTAG, appeared on BBC Radio 5 this morning to talk about the Indian variant, vaccines, models, masks and lockdowns. This is about as sceptical as you will get on the BBC.
Some schools are ignoring the change in the Government's guidelines and will continue to instruct children to wear face masks in the classroom, despite the Department for Education saying they have no right to do so.
Nearly one in five pregnant women are being forced to wear a face mask during labour, according to research by the charity Pregnant Then Screwed.
