Covid lockdown: Families may be able to meet within weeks

Alongside this, care home residents could be able to hold hands with a loved one again under the government's road map for easing coronavirus restrictions.

Downing Street said it wanted to make social contact easier as soon as possible as Prime Minister Boris Johnson spends the weekend finalising plans for relaxing measures in England.

Several newspapers have reported that new rules allowing two households to meet outdoors - regardless of the total number of people - are set to be introduced from April, while six people from six different households would also be able to gather.

Number 10 dismissed reports that pubs could be permitted to serve customers outdoors from April as speculation, with the Daily Mail saying that people could be served indoors in May.

Brighton and Hove during the third national lockdown

Mr Johnson has maintained that "the route out of lockdown will be cautious and phased".

Schools look set to reopen to all pupils from March 8, with both primary and secondaries said to return in just over three weeks.

The move comes despite a coalition of education unions and professional bodies warning that a full return of all pupils would be a "reckless" course of action.

• READ MORE: One area of Sussex now has one of the lowest coronavirus rates in all of England

A relaxation of the rules around care home visits has been given a cautious welcome by the sector, with calls for clarification on the details of the new arrangements.

Care home residents will be allowed to hold hands with a regular indoor visitor from March 8 under the government's plan to ease lockdown restrictions in England.

Visitors will be required to take a coronavirus lateral flow test - which gives quick results - before entry and personal protective equipment (PPE) must be worn.

Care home residents could soon be able to hold hands with loved ones with the lifting of lockdown restrictions expected to begin next month

Residents will be asked not to hug or kiss their relatives, and guidance for care homes is expected to be published in the next fortnight.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "pleased" that it would soon be possible for people to be "carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes".

Mr Johnson will set out the blueprint for relaxing measures in England on Monday - the final details of which will be agreed at a meeting of the "Covid O" committee on Sunday.

Brighton and Hove during the third national lockdown

The Prime Minister will then chair a meeting of his Cabinet on Monday, before announcing the plans to the Commons later that afternoon.

He is expected to lead a Downing Street press conference that evening alongside England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

The relaxation comes amid a backdrop of promising data suggesting coronavirus infections are dropping across the UK.

Around one in 115 people in private households in England had Covid-19 between February 6 and 12, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, down from around one in 80 people from January 31 to February 6.

• READ MORE: Hairdressers could be shut until the end of April

The data, which does not cover care homes and hospitals, is based on swab tests from thousands of people regardless of whether or not they have symptoms.

In Brighton and Hove, the city council's director of public health Alistair Hill confirmed on Thursday that the number of inpatients needing treatment for Covid-19 at local hospitals was on the decline.

He also spoke to the "great progress" made in the city, with the news that everyone in the top four priority groups in Sussex has been offered their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

And the number of new cases recorded in Brighton and Hove has also fallen significantly.

Brighton and Hove during the third national lockdown

In the latest figures, there were 198 cases in the city in the week leading up to February 15, giving the city a weekly rate of 68.1 new cases per 100,000 population.

In comparison, in the week leading up to January 15, the rate was 494.4 and the previous week it had been 776.3.

Brighton and Hove during the third national lockdown

Elsewhere, new analysis from Oxford University published in The Lancet confirmed that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine offers 76 per cent protection against Covid-19 from 22 days after vaccination, and that this had not waned by the three-month mark.

The UK policy of leaving up to 12 weeks between doses also resulted in a higher efficacy overall, the study found.