Coronavirus: Minister tells businesses to 'standby' for decision on cutting two-metre distancing rule
"This won't be a long process," the transport secretary promises - after claims 3.5 million jobs depend on the change.
Tuesday 16 June 2020 15:40, UK
Businesses have been told to "standby" for a decision on whether the two-metre social distancing rule will be eased.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps promised businesses the government review on halving how far apart people should stay to avoid spreading coronavirus will not be a "long process".
He admitted there is "pressure" to relax the guidance, given the World Health Organisation says it should be "at least one metre" and some Conservative MPs claim 3.5 million jobs are at risk if the restrictions aren't eased.
"This won't be a long process but it's important to get it right," Mr Shapps told Sky News' Kay Burley@Breakfast.
"As everybody knows there is lots of different evidence coming in from around the world where different countries are using different amounts of space.
"We must not go back to the virus spreading virulently within society."
Britons have been told since COVID-19 cases surged in March to maintain social distancing when around others from outside their own household.
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This has meant trying to keep two metres (6.5ft) apart from others when outside, at work and in shops.
Government guidance acknowledges that "this will not always be possible", but adds that the risk of infection increases the closer you are to someone with the virus.
Campaigners calling for the two-metre rule to be halved say it would allow more children to return to school and businesses like bars and restaurants and smaller shops to reopen.
Professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, academics at the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, said that "the evidence informing policy in this outbreak is poor quality".
They wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Monday that evidence shows the risk of catching COVID-19 is higher in healthcare settings than in the community and higher indoors than outdoors but "cannot say" if "there is any measured distance that reduces your risk".
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has defended the current policy, saying on Monday: "There's no magic to one or other particular measure, there will be different levels of risk whether it's at two metres, one-and-a-half metres or one metre.
"We are still going to make sure that all of the policy judgements that we rightly as politicians take and are accountable for are underpinned by the science."
The review into cutting the distance was confirmed over the weekend, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak vowing that it will be ministers rather than the government's scientific advisers who will take the final decision on whether to change policy.
Some experts, including the chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty, have previously signalled their reluctance to see any easing while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
There are different rules across the world when it comes to how much room to allow for social distancing.
France, Denmark and Singapore are among the nations that say it should be one metre.
But the UK is not an international outlier when it comes to advocating two metres: Canada and Spain have the same guidance in place.