Sports, outdoor socialising and open-air markets will be the first activities green-lit by ministers

Boris Johnson will begin easing restrictions to permit outdoor meetings and sport once children are back in school, sources claimed last night.

Ministers are believed to be drawing up ‘tentative’ plans to gently relax the rules to allow open-air gatherings in the spring.

This blueprint mapping out the baby steps back to normality will begin only after the Government delivers on its priority to reopen the schools.

Government sources told The Times that both team and solo sports could be given the green light to resume within weeks of March 8 – the day pupils are supposed to go back to the classroom.

Proposals initially limiting mixing to outdoors only reflects scientific consensus that coronavirus finds it harder to spread in the fresh air. 

The Prime Minister’s plans will also earmark dates for non-essential shops and pubs, which have been shut since the third national lockdown came into force in January, to finally reopen.    

Indoor mixing is again expected to be curtailed in the retail and hospitality sectors, paving the way booming outdoor markets and for al fresco dining areas to be resurrected.

Mr Johnson is also reportedly eager to overhaul complex rules that had required pub-goers in some areas to order a ‘substantial meal’ with alcohol, drawing scorn when ministers were forced to clarify that a scotch egg counted. 

The plans to prioritise open-air activities emerged as: 

• The average daily vaccination rate has risen to 430,532 in the last seven days, equal to more than three million jabs a week; 
• A study said the UK could reach herd immunity by July; 
• Some ministers are concerned that the PM’s plan to ease restrictions on a national basis would slow Britain’s escape from lockdown;
• The Treasury was forced to deny reports that Rishi Sunak is growing frustrated with the slow pace of the exit; 
• Ministers faced calls to ‘think again’ about the decision to keep schools closed until March 8 after Scotland said it would reopen them on February 22; 
• A new NHS hospital could be named after Captain Sir Tom Moore;  
• European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen came under mounting pressure over the EU’s faltering vaccine rollout, with Germany’s vice-chancellor reportedly calling her efforts ‘really s***’;
• It emerged that passengers on public transport in London could be required to wear medical grade masks. 

Talk has turned to the ending of lockdown after Professor Chris Whitty confirmed that the UK is past the peak of this second wave of the pandemic.

A further 915 deaths and 20,634 positive tests were reported yesterday – both counts were down by more than a quarter week-on-week.  

More than 10million people have also now been vaccinated, with the speed of jabs going into arms accelerating.

Hawkish Tory MPs have begun calling for a battle plan to ensure lockdown can be completely banished by the summer, after Mr Johnson promised to unveil a roadmap on February 22.

Former Conservative chief whip Mark Harper, who leads the 70-strong Covid Research Group, said the vaccine rollout is progressing to the point where ‘by the time you get to the end of May you should be in a position to get rid of restrictions completely’.

But health chiefs are warning that suddenly springing off restrictions could jeopardise efforts to beat back the virus.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson yesterday urged ministers to adopt a ‘cautious, evidence-based’ approach.

Although the number of patients in ICU is coming down ‘very slowly’, he said there were still 26,000 people fighting Covid-19 in hospitals – 40 per cent more than the peak of the first wave.

And that stretched capacity has forced frontline staff to work ‘at fever pitch intensity’, leaving them ‘deeply exhausted’ and ‘fatigued’. 

Mr Johnson this week acknowledged that infection rates remained ‘alarmingly high’ and suggested his Government would be taking baby steps.

It is simultaneously trying to crack down on new cases from overseas and last night fleshed out details for the scheme to force arrivals to do 11 nights quarantine in hotels – which will launch on February 15, three weeks after it was announced.

Retired Royal Marine general Sir Gordon Messenger, a former vice chief of defence staff who led a mass community testing operation in Liverpool last year, has been drafted in to oversee the delayed project. 

Last night, it was claimed the Government was racing to reserve 28,000 hotel rooms across the UK in a bid to launch the scheme.

Documents seen by the Daily Telegraph suggested ministers had asked hotel bosses to be ready to accommodate 1,425 passengers a day by February 15. 

The scheme will see returning passengers quarantined in hotels for 11 nights at a cost of up to £800 per person. 

Labour said the measures will come nearly two months after the South African Covid strain was discovered in the UK.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: ‘We are in a race against time to protect our borders against new Covid strains … as ever with this Government, it is too little, too late.’ 

And while ministers were imposing a new squeeze at the border, they are also reportedly drawing up plans for ‘vaccine passports’ in a boost for summer holidays.

The Times reports that documents could be provided for tourists to prove they have been inoculated against coronavirus.  

It comes after several European countries including Greece, Spain, Malta and Denmark have signalled support for such a plan.

The Foreign Office, the Department for Transport and The Department for Health and Social Care working on a range of measures to enable a return to foreign travel – including certificates to prove tourists have received a jab.  

Proof the peak HAS passed: Daily deaths drop to 915 and cases to 20,634 – down 30% from last week – as all but THREE local authorities in England see Covid infections fall and pressure on NHS intensive care units finally eases

By Connor Boyd, assistant health editor for MailOnline 

More proof that Britain has passed the peak of the second wave of coronavirus emerged yesterday as daily deaths and cases continued to fall and pressure on intensive care units finally started to ease. 

Department of Health officials recorded another 915 Covid victims — including a seven-year-old — and 20,634 positive tests. Both daily counts were down by more than a quarter week-on-week.

Separate Public Health England figures showed all but three local authorities saw coronavirus infections drop last week, plummeting in London, the South East and other areas that were ravaged before Christmas. Cases in care homes fell by a third, data also showed. 

The latest Test and Trace report today claimed positive Covid tests plunged by 41 per cent in the last fortnight, in another sign the crisis is firmly in retreat.

Meanwhile, NHS England statistics showed there were 5,283 patients in ICUs across the country on the last day of January, down slightly on the previous week when there were 5,446 beds in use. 

It’s the first time ICU capacity has eased since the highly-infectious Kent Covid variant started to spiral out of control in December. 

All key metrics now indicate the darkest days of the winter crisis are behind us, with the number of Covid hospital patients in general beds dropping to its lowest level for a month and in every region.  

However a leading health figure issued a sobering reminder that the NHS is still at ‘full stretch’ and that staff are ‘deeply exhausted’ after working at ‘fever pitch intensity’ for weeks.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said ICU numbers are coming down ‘very slowly’, adding that there are still 26,000 Covid-19 patients in hospitals – 40 per cent more than the peak in the first phase last April.  

Despite all figures trending in the right direction, there is mounting anger over ‘goalpost shifting’ on lockdown as ministers and SAGE scientists suggested case numbers need to come down further before any ‘significant’ easing, shifting away from No10’s original ‘protect the NHS, save lives’ mantra.  

A 70-strong group of lockdown-sceptic Tories in the CRG block demanded Boris Johnson lifts restrictions altogether by the summer. The Prime Minister is facing an angry backlash and claims he is being ‘beaten up by scientists’.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi appeared to indicate that the government is looking at the top nine risk categories – around 32million people – as the trigger point for a widespread downgrading of measures. 

So far the PM has only said that he will unveil a route map out of lockdown on February 22, after the first four most vulnerable groups have been covered. 

There are claims that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is again leading calls within Cabinet for lockdown to be eased as early as possible – in contrast to the more cautious tone adopted by Mr Johnson recently. 

Public Health England data published yesterday revealed 146 out of 149 areas (98 per cent) recorded a drop in weekly positive tests in the seven days to January 31, with cases falling in all English regions for the second week running.

Infection rates plunged by more than 33 per cent in a third of local authorities and fell sharply by over 25 per cent in another 35 places. Cases are also down in every age group.

Encouraging figures also show the number of suspected outbreaks in English care homes dropped by more than a third last week, falling from 504 to 321. 

This, combined with the fact 80 per cent of care home residents have now been vaccinated, suggest officials are finally getting a grip on the resurgence of the virus in the sector. 

The only three areas in England to see rises in the past week were Torbay, where it increased by 0.9 per cent to 169 per 100,000, Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, where the rate climbed 3.9 per cent to 210 and in Rutland where there was an uniquely large rise. The East Midlands county recorded a 33 per cent increase, with the rate now 230 per 100,000. 

It is thought that a Covid outbreak in HMP Stocken in Stretton could be partly to blame. It has not been confirmed how many have tested positive for the coronavirus. The category C men’s prison has around 950 inmates. 

Despite the country heading in the right direction, the NHS figures show 23 trusts across England did not have a single spare intensive care bed on January 31. 

These included University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest trusts in England, along with Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.  

But the problem was not confined to the Midlands, as major trusts all over the country — including in Merseyside, London, Derbyshire and the home counties — also reported having no spare critical care capacity. 

Even hospitals in the South West, which had managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic throughout 2020, were seeing their ICUs pushed to the brink, with Portsmouth Hospitals University National Health Service Trust and the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust recording 100 per cent occupancy.

Despite lockdown starting to bring Britain’s winter wave under control, ICUs nationally are still almost 70 per cent busier than they have been at any time over the past five years. 

For comparison, there were 3,034 critically-ill patients at the same time last winter, and the average over the last four years stood at 3,183.