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Coronavirus: Johnson orders UK venues to close

Prime minister Boris Johnson has finally told the UK's entertainment venues they must close to slow the transmission of Covid-19

By IQ on 20 Mar 2020

Indoor shows to return to England in August

image © Stephen Harvey/No 10 Downing Street

British prime minister Boris Johnson has told bars, clubs and venues in the UK to close from this evening (Friday 20 March) for the foreseeable future, as he warned that “we need to push down further on [the] curve of transmission” of Covid-19 in the UK.

At the daily UK government coronavirus press conference, Johnson updated his earlier, much-criticised guidance to stay away from venues, saying he is now “telling – telling – cafés, pubs, bars and restaurants to close tonight, as soon as they reasonably can, and not open tomorrow.”

Johnson urged people not to go out tonight for one final hurrah: “Please don’t,” he said. “You may think you are invincible, but there is no guarantee you will get mild symptoms, and you can still be a carrier of the disease and pass it on to others.”

The government had been considering a formal ban yesterday and was braced to announce it, but pulled back, according to the Guardian, which says there was a “deep reluctance” among senior government figures to issue any banning order.

 


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