UK, Czech Republic, Greece Ease Some COVID-19 Restrictions, Resume Non-Essential Services

A number of European nations, including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Greece, are taking tentative steps to ease lockdown measures on Monday, with national authorities allowing select non-essential facilities to reopen

MOSCOW/LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th April, 2021) A number of European nations, including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Greece, are taking tentative steps to ease lockdown measures on Monday, with national authorities allowing select non-essential facilities to reopen.

Starting Monday, hairdressers, beauty salons and indoor gyms, as well as libraries, zoos and amusement parks, will reopen in England. Pubs and restaurants will resume outdoor services, provided that clients do not order food and drinks at the bar counter and all visitors sit at their tables.

The hospitality business will also resume operations as the authorities have allowed domestic travel again. The reopening of pubs and restaurants, though partially, is seen as a major step forward for businessmen from the hospitality industry and the public alike.

"It was about time," John Byrne, manager of The Oiler Bar, a former refueling barge moored to London's Royal Dock, told Sputnik, as he put the final touches to the tables and chairs on the upper deck where he will be allowed to serve his clients starting Monday.

Byrne, who also runs an adjacent waterboard sport outlet, said he only hoped this time the reopening of the leisure sector is for good, after suffering repeated closures over the last few month.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people to be cautious and behave responsibly in this new step towards normality in England in order to prevent a new surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths.

"I urge everyone to continue to behave responsibly and remember 'hands, face, space and fresh air' to suppress COVID as we push on with our vaccination program," Johnson stressed.

Johnson, who had admitted in March that he "badly need a haircut," was heavily criticized on social media for his "shabby hair-do" when he stepped out of his residence in 10 Downing Street on Friday to make a statement on the death of Prince Philip.

Limit of group gatherings has been set at 15 people for weddings and 30 people for funerals in the United Kingdom.

In Northern Ireland, children will return to schools on Monday, while residents will be able to travel distances of over five kilometers (three miles). People from two different families will be able to meet on the street, but not in private gardens. The construction sector will fully resume operations.

The next phase of the UK road map toward easier restrictions is expected to start on May 17. Pubs and restaurants will be allowed to resume indoor services. Up to six people from different households will be allowed to meet indoors if the government's scientific advisers consider that the vaccination program is safely breaking the link between infections and deaths.

Another country on the way to relax coronavirus-related restrictions is the Czech Republic. On Monday, the country lifts a state of emergency declared last October, the nationwide nighttime curfew, as well as the ban on movement between regions.

Czech schools will reopen on Monday for students from the first to fifth grades, who will be divided into several groups, which will switch weekly from in-person to distance learning. Kindergartens will partially resume operations.

Some non-essential shops, libraries, zoos and botanical gardens will reopen. Household services such as dry cleaning, sale and repair of car parts, open-air farmers markets will resume work.

Greece will also lift some coronavirus-related restrictions on Monday, allowing high school and vocational education institutions to reopen, while Primary schools and gymnasiums will remain closed until Easter in early May.

Apart from educational institutions, bookmakers will start working in Greece on Monday.