A roadmap out of lockdown was announced this week.
Restrictions across the UK will be eased in four stages, with each stage to be a minimum of five weeks apart.
The following conditions must be met in order to progress to the next stage:
- The COVID vaccine continues to be rolled out
- The COVID vaccine sufficiently reduces the number of people requiring hospitalisation, or dying of the infection
- Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospital admissions
- New COVID variants do not fundamentally change the risk of lifting restrictions
In major news, care home residents will be allowed 1 visitor from 8 March.
Each resident will be able to have one nominated, regular visitor, who will be required to take a COVID test and don PPE for the visit.
Physical contact is to be kept to a minimum, however, visitors and residents will be able to hold hands.
This will no doubt come as a welcome and exciting piece of news for those that have been in lockdown for many months on end.
People have been striving to continue to provide opportunities for engagement and entertainment for the elderly people in our community.
One such initiative was Mystery Bird.
The mobile lightshow was a spark of genius as to how to continue providing art to people during lockdown, and has had a wide reaching impact, as can be seen below.
Visit our previous blog entries for more information on Mystery Bird and the impact social isolation has on the elderly.
Visit BBC News for more information on the lockdown roadmap.