Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced for the re-opening of pubs and restaurants from 4th July under a new one plus metre rule with visitors required to register themselves in an attempt to trace the coronavirus infection rate.
This will enable customers to sit together in venues where observing a two-metre social distancing norm is not feasible but so long as additional "mitigating" measures are in place.
These include more back-to-back seating, perspex screens, partitions between tables, disposable menus and more cleaning of commonly touched surface areas.
Waiters will be required to wipe down surfaces more often and collect glasses and plates more frequently, and people will be discouraged from returning their glass or ordering from the bar, with more table service and mobile apps expected.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said, “That is the sort of thing that we are looking at for how you make it safe to open things.
“There are all sorts of mitigations you can put in place to be physically closer than two metres, but not have the transmission of the virus or the risk of the transmission that you would otherwise have.”
