‘We are not out of the woods’ warns Northumberland health chief as restrictions are eased

Liz Morgan is urging residents to show caution as Covid-19 restrictions are eased and has stressed the need to continue to maintain the essential Hands, Face, Space guidance.

She said: “We are making good progress as a county and a nation to drive down infection rates and the progress with vaccinations has been remarkable.

"However we are not out of the woods and as we carefully move forward, we need to continue to maintain the Hands, Face, Space guidance and continue to look after one another.

"We know the changing of restrictions can lead to temptation to act as though all is normal. We simply cannot afford to take that risk, whether we have been vaccinated or not.

“We've come so far in this pandemic but we have to keep doing the right things if we are to see restrictions ease further over the coming week and months.”

The stay at home message no longer applies and with the Easter half term holidays underway more people are enjoying getting out and about.

The new rules allow people to meet outdoors either in a group of 6 (from any number of households), or in a group of any size from up to 2 households (each household can include existing support bubbles, if eligible).

People can take part in formally organised outdoor sports with any number of people, while outdoor sports such as tennis and golf can resume.

Childcare and supervised activities will be allowed outdoors for all children and formally organised parent and child groups will be able to take place outdoors for up to 15 attendees. Children under 5 will not be counted in this number.

From April 1, if you have been identified as clinically extremely vulnerable you will no longer be advised to shield. However, you should continue to take extra precautions to protect yourself. It is important that you continue to keep the number of social interactions that you have low and try to limit the amount of time you spend in settings where you are unable to maintain social distancing.

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