Boris Johnson in secret plan to ease UK lockdown at Easter

Boris Johnson has begun secretly planning to ease restrictions at Easter in the hope that it will allow millions of Brits to meet up with their loved ones.

Cabinet Office officials have reportedly begun outlining a detailed “unlocking framework” to gradually ease Covid restrictions into April.

Easter weekend – which falls on April 3 and 4 in 2021 – is a fair way ahead yet, but The Sun reports that Johnson has already started working on "frameworks" that will allow people more freedom.

Currently, no minister has publicly stated when things are likely to "return to normal" but the Prime Minister is reported to have early April in mind for the first step in easing the restrictions.

A senior source in Government told the publication: "It’s way too soon to start talking about when, but the work is being done quietly on the how.”

However, all future planning relies heavily on the vaccine's successful rollout and lockdown hopefully causing the R-rate and hospitalisations to drop significantly.

Boris has called for the NHS to speed up its vaccination process, after a two-week lag on those needing the jab has meant that hospitals are still under unbelievable pressure.

This lag has meant a number of people in their 90s in the south and east of England are yet to receive the potentially live-saving vaccine, whilst nearly all 80-year-olds in the north of England have received it.

Bosses believe that the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 has now passed in the UK and are hoping the vaccination rollout will translate into falling daily infection and death figures.

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Mr Johnson urged NHS England CEO, Sir Simon Stevens, to "drive for the line" when it came to vaccinations.

The pleas from the PM followed a terrible weekend in Britain as we continued to see deaths at record highs.

As well as this, alarming stats showed that daily vaccinations dropped by nearly half over the weekend.

Medics in England carried out 170,900 jabs yesterday.

That is well below the 324,711 vaccinations dished out last Friday – the highest daily figure recorded so far.

These numbers fuel worries that after a lightning quick start, the jabs programme is hitting major supply problems.

Ministers have repeatedly said that “limitations in supply” is the only reason the country isn’t going quicker.

Mr Johnson has warned that lockdown will only be lifted when they are satisfied with results of vaccinations.

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Unfortunately, it's likely that most of the country would automatically go back into Tier 4 to start.

Slowly areas may be allowed back into Tiers 3 and 2 that allow more activities and households to meet up outside, with no single “big bang moment” of unlocking.

Households are able to meet up outside in Tier 2 giving hope for Easter get togethers.

Yesterday, medic Jenny Harries confirmed that Britain's regional approach would return.

Giving evidence to the Commons Education Committee, she said: “It is highly likely that when we come out of this national lockdown we will not have consistent patterns of infection in our communities across the country.

"And therefore, as we had prior to the national lockdown, it may well be possible that we need to have some differential application.”

She added: “I think it's likely that we will have some sort of regional separation of interventions.”

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