UK’s Covid timeline: key dates in the pandemic

Coronavirus cases in the UK are increasing once again, with 1.7 million people across the country estimated to be infected.

“As temperatures drop, Britain is experiencing the start of a third consecutive winter in which confirmed cases of Covid-19 are rising,” said Harry Clarke-Ezzidio and Saywah Mahmood at The New Statesman.

Although experts are “wary”, it is not a “massive surprise”, they added, as the world has had almost three years to learn about the virus and roll out vaccination programmes.

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While legal restrictions in England were lifted eight months ago, the country is still dealing with the repercussions of one of history’s deadliest plagues.

Here is a detailed timeline of the outbreak.

31 December 2019

The first reports of a mystery virus in Wuhan began to spread across the world. Chinese authorities said they were investigating 27 cases but were unable to confirm the cause of the disease. Within 12 days, the first recorded case outside China was reported in Thailand.

31 January 2020

England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, confirmed that two patients in England had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Little did he know that he was soon to become a household name, beamed into televisions around the country as the “calm, clear-headed expert at the helm of the nation’s strategy”, said The Guardian.

3 March 2020

In a televised press conference, Boris Johnson reassured the country that the government would “contain, delay, research, mitigate” the impact of the virus and urged people to wash their hands for the “length of time it takes to sing Happy Birthday”.

He also “boasted of ‘continuously’ shaking hands with people, including Covid-19 patients”, noted the Financial Times. Just hours earlier, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) had agreed that the government should warn against all physical contact, including shaking hands and hugging.

10 March 2020

The Cheltenham horse-racing festival began, days after scientific advice, published by the government, suggested that cancelling large-scale public events wouldn’t contain the outbreak. The following day, Liverpool played Atlético Madrid at home in the Champions League, bringing thousands of Spanish fans to the UK.

Meanwhile, news footage filtering in from Italy showed an “overloaded” healthcare system, with some doctors “forced to decide not to treat the very old, leaving them to die”, said The New York Times. The “hard hit” Lombardy region offered a “grim glimpse” of what awaited countries if they failed to slow the spread of the virus, said the paper.

16 March 2020

Modellers at Imperial College London found that critical care capacity in the UK would be overwhelmed by the coronavirus outbreak and 250,000 people would die unless social distancing protocols were put in place.

That afternoon, Johnson advised the public to avoid unnecessary contact and travel. “We need people to start working from home where they possibly can. And you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues,” he said. Pubs and restaurants were ordered to shut the same week.

20 March 2020

Schools closed their gates to the majority of students, and families across the country were forced to juggle home schooling with new working-from-home routines.

23 March 2020

Johnson announced what The Telegraph called the “biggest lockdown of society in British history” on national television. Previous advice on social distancing became legally mandatory and the furlough scheme was unveiled.

“From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home,” said the prime minister.

2 April 2020

Health Secretary Matt Hancock pledged that 100,000 coronavirus tests would be carried out by the end of the month. Within four days, the government admitted that none of the 17.5 million antibody tests it had bought worked.

5 May 2020

The UK surpassed Italy to become the country with the highest declared death toll in Europe, with more than 32,000 fatalities.

13 May 2020

The PM urged people who were unable to work from home to go back to their jobs, while maintaining social distancing. People were allowed out of their houses for unlimited exercise and to meet one other person outdoors, as long as they stayed two metres away.

22 May 2020

Quarantine travel measures were announced, requiring people arriving in the UK to self-isolate for 14 days from 8 June. Travellers had to tell the government where they would quarantine, with enforcement through random spot checks and £1,000 fines in England.

The government was also plunged into crisis after The Guardian and Daily Mirror accused the PM’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings of breaching lockdown rules during a trip from London to Barnard Castle, near Durham, and back.

1 June 2020

Despite a row with teaching unions, the government reopened schools for all reception, year one and year six pupils. Groups of six people were allowed to meet outdoors.

13 June 2020

The first “social bubble” scheme was announced, in which single-person households were allowed to meet and stay overnight with another household. It meant single grandparents or couples living in separate households were able to meet indoors for the first time in weeks.

15 June 2020

Non-essential shops reopened in England, along with zoos, safari parks and places of worship. Rules were introduced ordering passengers to wear face masks on public transport in England. A week later it was announced that social distancing rules would be relaxed further and pubs, cinemas and restaurants would reopen, but Leicester was put into a stricter lockdown due to a spike in cases.

8 July 2020

Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a £30bn spending package aimed at mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic, including a temporary reduction in VAT for the hospitality sector, a scheme to pay firms £1,000 for each employee brought back from furlough and a temporary rise in the stamp duty threshold.

15 July 2020

Johnson committed to an “independent inquiry” into the coronavirus pandemic, but added that it was not the right time for an investigation.

“Of course we will seek to learn the lessons of this pandemic in the future and certainly we will have an independent inquiry into what happened,” he told MPs.

25 July 2020

With little warning, the UK government confirmed travellers returning to England from Spain would be required to quarantine for 14 days, after a rise in cases there.

13 August 2020

The government confirmed that France would be removed from the UK’s travel corridor after a surge in cases, leaving British holidaymakers with 30 hours to make it home and avoid 14 days of mandatory isolation.

On A-level results day teachers had almost 40% of their assessments downgraded due to an algorithm that used schools’ past performances to help determine their students’ grades. Grades were later revised.

11 September 2020

The R value, which measures the virus’s ability to spread, rose above 1 across the UK for the first time since early March. Analysis suggested the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme may have contributed to the spike. Three days later, social gatherings of more than six people were made illegal in England.

24 September 2020

More than one million people downloaded the government’s new contact-tracing app for England and Wales within its first day of release. The app instructed users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detected they were near someone who had the virus.

Sky News, however, reported that within days the app’s developers admitted they had not been able to link more than 60,000 coronavirus tests carried out in England on Friday – just under a third of the total – to its systems.

28 September 2020

The global tally hit one million deaths. The UK was at 42,000 deaths and 441,000 cases.

14 October 2020

England moved to a “three-tier” Covid system, with areas separated based on infection rates and subject to different lockdown restrictions.

The Liverpool City Region was immediately put into Tier 3. Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, announced a four-week lockdown.

23 October 2020

Wales began a two-week “firebreak” lockdown, with all residents required to stay at home as much as possible.

5 November 2020

England entered its second national lockdown as cases continued to surge. The day before “Lockdown 2.0”, cities like Norwich saw a “mini-boom” in sales as shoppers made last-minute purchases, said the BBC, and pubs and restaurants offered discounts to avoid wasting food and drink.

2 December 2020

A three-tier system of Covid restrictions came into force as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, making the UK the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccination.

8 December 2020

Margaret Keenan, 90, became the first person to receive a Covid vaccine outside a clinical trial.

19 December 2020

Johnson announced that a planned relaxation of Covid rules over the Christmas period would be scrapped for large parts of southeast England, and cut to just Christmas Day for the rest of England. New “Tier 4” measures were applied to London, Kent, Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire to try to control the spread of a new variant of the virus.

The Sunday Times declared “Christmas is cancelled by surging mutant virus” on its front page.

4 January 2021

Johnson announced new national lockdown measures for England due to the spread of another variant, later known as Alpha, that he described as “both frustrating and alarming”.

21 January 2021

The government announced mandatory hotel quarantine for people travelling to the UK from a list of high-risk countries.

20 February 2021

A new vaccination target was declared. All UK adults would be offered a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of July, bringing forward the previous target of September.

22 February 2021

Johnson laid out England’s roadmap for lifting lockdown, a four-step plan that could see all restrictions removed by 21 June at the earliest.

7 May 2021

The government published plans for its “traffic light system” for international travel.

Public Health England officially declared a new strain of Covid, first found in India and later known as Delta, a “variant of concern”.

14 June 2021

The prime minister announced the easing of lockdown restrictions was to be delayed by a month – until 19 July – amid rising cases of the Delta strain.

26 June 2021

Matt Hancock resigned as health secretary after leaked CCTV footage showed him kissing aide and former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo in his departmental office, in breach of Covid restrictions. Ex-chancellor Sajid Javid was named as his successor.

19 July 2021

England celebrated “Freedom Day” as the vast majority of Covid-19 restrictions were finally lifted and the country moved to step four of the government’s roadmap.

The end to most restrictions meant social distancing under most circumstances was brought to a close, and limits on socialising ended, with the rule of six being scrapped.

24 November 2021

The first case of the Omicron variant was announced by South Africa. Three days later, the first cases were reported in England, in two people with links to travel to southern Africa.

30 November 2021

Details of the Partygate scandal began to emerge, with the Daily Mirror claiming that Johnson and Downing Street staff broke rules to attend parties ahead of Christmas 2020.

8 December 2021

Johnson confirmed that England would move to its Plan B measures amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Face coverings became compulsory in most public indoor venues, such as cinemas, theatres and places of worship. People were once more advised to work from home.

20 February 2022

Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had tested positive for Covid. The monarch, 95 at the time, experienced “mild cold-like symptoms”, said the palace.

21 February 2022

Johnson announced he was lifting the last domestic Covid restrictions in England, including the requirement for people with Covid-19 to self-isolate. The PM told the House of Commons that the country was “moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility”.