Face masks, Covid passports and work from home advice to be scrapped as restrictions ease

All current Plan B Covid restrictions will be scrapped next week, Boris Johnson has confirmed to MPs at today’s PMQs.

This means that, from Thursday January 27th, mandatory Covid passes will no longer be needed and people will not be asked to work from home where possible.

The prime minister also announced that face masks will not be mandatory anywhere, which prompted loud cheers and shouts from the Tory back benches.

From tomorrow, face masks will not be needed in classrooms with the guidance to wear them in communal areas expected to be removed also. 

Johnson added that the government will still ‘suggest’ the use of face coverings in cramped or crowded spaces from the 27th, saying: “We will trust the judgment of the British people.”

However, self-isolation will remain a legal requirement for those who have tested positive for Covid.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he will support the relaxation of Plan B ‘as long as science says that it is safe’, asking Boris Johnson to release the scientific evidence behind his decision.

Johnson responded by saying the latest data shows that infections levels are falling and scientists believe the Omicron wave has ‘peaked nationally’. 

This comes as Johnson’s popularity plummets following the revelation of a number of Downing Street lockdown parties.

Yesterday, Johnson told Sky News reporters that ‘nobody told me’ attending a Downing Street garden party during the May 2020 lockdown was breaking the very Covid rules he had set and imposed upon the nation. 

He said: “I’m saying categorically that nobody told me, nobody said this was something that was against the rules, doing something that wasn’t a work event because frankly, I can’t imagine why it would have gone ahead, or it would have been allowed to go ahead if it was against the rules.”