UK government pressured on 2-meter buffer

The United Kingdom government is under pressure to abandon its requirement for people to have a 2-meter buffer around them when not at home, a rule critics said is excessive and economically damaging.

The 2-meter zone is among the nation's social distancing measures aimed at stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 respiratory disease.

But business groups said it means pubs and restaurants will not be able to make a profit when they reopen. They are calling for a 1-meter zone instead, something the World Health Organization deems adequate.

Several members of Parliament from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ruling Conservative Party now support the change, including former Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green.

Duncan Smith, who was once party leader, told the Daily Mail newspaper: "The number one and single most important priority to unlock the economy is getting the distance down to 1 meter; the hospitality sector simply can't make a living at 2 meters."

Nations including Denmark, France, and Singapore have a 1-meter zone.

Green told the BBC's Newsnight the change would make "a huge difference to many parts of industry".

"We've seen other countries do that, actually move from 2 meters to 1 meter, without any damaging effects so far," he said.

But Johnson has said he will take his lead from the UK's scientific advisors, who currently call for a 2-meter zone.

"My judgement, at present, is that we must proceed cautiously," he said earlier.

The zone is among challenges the pandemic has thrown at businesses, and the scale of the unfolding economic downturn became clearer on Thursday when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report that the UK will experience the developed economies' biggest economic contraction, shrinking in 2020 by 11.5 percent.

The slump will cause job losses, which have started in some sectors.

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced on Thursday it is cutting 5,000 jobs because of the pandemic. Heathrow Airport has launched a voluntary redundancy program.

The airport's chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said: "Throughout this crisis, we have tried to protect frontline jobs but this is no longer sustainable."

The lockdown has also badly mauled English Premier League soccer clubs, which financial services company Deloitte predicted will lose 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion) this year.

The Confederation of British Industry, which speaks for 190,000 enterprises, has urged the government to avoid heaping a no-deal Brexit on top of the fallout from the pandemic.

The CBI's director-general, Carolyn Fairbairn, told the BBC it would be like "setting the shed on fire" while your house is burning.

"The resilience of British business is absolutely on the floor," she added.

At Thursday's daily news briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government's recently-launched test and trace system is working well and being improved.

"Testing for the virus and tracing how it spreads is critical to containing it locally, so we can ease the national lockdown," he said.

Hancock, who announced a further 151 deaths overnight, insisted the test and trace program will be fully functioning by the time the nation ends its lockdown.

On Thursday, NHS (National Health Service) England published its first statistics about the program, through which it contacts people who may have become infected. Of the 8,117 people who tested positive between May 28 and June 3-the first week of the program-5,407 offered details about their recent contacts, of whom 79 percent were traced and warned.

The opposition Labour Party said the system must be better if it is to keep a lid on transmissions.

The party's leader, Keir Starmer, added to his criticism of the government by writing in the Daily Telegraph that the reopening of schools had been mismanaged.

After reopenings scheduled for July were put back to September, he said the government must ensure the later deadline is not missed, with empty buildings-including theaters, museums, and libraries-repurposed as makeshift classrooms if necessary.

Amanda Spielman, chief inspector at the Office for Standards in Education, said on BBC Radio 4's Today program she wants the government to be "much more optimistic approach" about reopenings.

"I think it should be about what we can do, not about what we can't do," she said.

But the government has defended its decision-making, including around the timing of the lockdown, which critics have said came too late to save lives.

Simon Clarke, the minister for local government, told the BBC the timing was based on science.

"We acted in good faith to try to save both lives and livelihoods," he said. "I think that's been the consistent theme of our approach to this crisis. So, there is a lot of being wise after the fact."

Elsewhere, Russia reported a further 8,779 deaths overnight, taking its total above 500,000, the third-highest after the US and Brazil.

The collapse of the temporary work market in France has been estimated to have cost 500,000 jobs.

In Germany, airline Lufthansa said it will lose 22,000 jobs as it restructures following a 9-billion-euro ($10 billion) state bailout.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed he will give evidence on Friday at an inquiry into the timing of the country's lockdown, amid claims it came too late.