“It’s so nice – step one to normality” is how Tracy Draycott, 55, framed the government’s much-vaunted “freedom day”. Four generations of one family – Draycott, her daughter, her granddaughter and her mother – were enjoying a day out in sweltering weather at the Merseyway shopping precinct, Stockport.
Draycott, a pharmacy manager, said she would still be wearing a mask at work to protect vulnerable patients, but would be ditching all other restrictions. “We need to start going again,” she said, adding that she was planning a big barbecue for the extended family after a difficult pandemic. Her daughter, Jessica Taylor, 27, had given birth to her first baby a week into the first lockdown, and Tracy’s mother had found the isolation “really hard”.
The family is unconcerned about rising cases – Stockport currently has 483.9 positive coronavirus cases per 100,000 people compared to the UK average of 376.1, with a jump of 33% in cases from last week. Draycott compares it to the seasonal rise in flu, “and we don’t stop our lives for that,” she said.
However, not everyone shares the feeling of liberation. “I came on the bus, and I was the only person not wearing a mask,” added Wendy Draycott, 78.
About eight in 10 bus passengers arriving at Mersey Square, Stockport, had their faces covered. Some were through express choice, although a few were unaware of any change to the legal requirement. One bus driver said there had been no palpable difference, although he was relieved he would no longer have the difficult job of trying to implement a compulsory policy.
Transport for London said mask compliance on buses and tubes had been observed at about 85%, roughly unchanged from earlier rates. Travellers leaving London Bridge station were largely in favour of maintaining mask-wearing. “I will still be wearing mine in shops, on the underground – anywhere I feel I should be,” said 64-year-old Janet Rands.
She and Tracey Kerr, 49, were in London for a short trip from Hull and were keen that people be allowed to still move freely around the UK. Neither saw mask-wearing as particularly negotiable. “My friend came down to London for the England match and she, her husband and everyone else all got Covid,” Kerr said.
For 24-year-old Victoria Woodwards, the motivation had more to do with other people. “To be honest, I just wear it to keep them happy,” she said as she stood at an entrance to London Bridge station.
And she was critical of the government’s strategy, saying: “I don’t feel like we should be wearing masks. Now clubs are open, what are people going to do – wear their masks inside? It’s stupid. But you let people out and we will have thousands of cases and go back in again.”
As well as clubs, many hair salons have fully embraced the unlocking. Ben Mitchell, a trainee stylist at Dry salon in Stockport, said it felt “amazing” to have removed masks and screens. “I feel like everyone will feel a bit more free now – and hear a bit better,” he said.
Ilyess Guebra agreed, saying he had found it difficult to breathe with a face covering, particularly on hot days. The IT specialist was most excited about being able to return home to Italy.
In the majority of shops and banks, however, there was no grand ripping down of Perspex screens. The company that owns Merseyway had advised its 100 or so tenants to retain regular cleaning procedures, floor graphics promoting social distancing and signs encouraging customers to sanitise hands and wear masks.
Alison Jackson, who works in Card Express, said mask wearing was up slightly if anything and that by mid-morning not a single customer had come in unmasked. “We’ve got young ’uns who work here, who have first vaccinations but not the second, so we’ll keep our masks on for them,” she said.
Seventeen-year-old Lauren Adams is also thinking of others. The college student has only recently recovered her taste and smell after a bout of Covid-19, and worries about her mother, who is vulnerable. She will keep her mask on inside and continue only meeting up with two of her friends at a time, preferably outside.
Boris Johnson had “got a bit too excited” by unlocking while cases were so high, she said. “I think he’s silly … but I can’t stop him,” Adams added.
Among office workers in the City of London, there was a buzz among people who felt they could see the end in sight. One worker, Vicky Mahan, said she had been exempt from wearing masks, but was aware that a lot of her colleagues had had a difficult time with them.
“I think people had a moment where they were getting excited,” the 30-year-old said, adding that she felt many had discarded their masks since the law changed. “Not only is it getting hotter, but people also want to move on.”
Meanwhile, the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, said he was “very worried” about the spread of the disease across parliament and revealed a “large number of people” working there had been pinged or contacted by test and trace.
He also urged MPs to carry on wearing a mask when the chamber was packed, though many were seen having already shed their face covering since some Covid measures were removed from the room, including signs notifying MPs which seats they can sit in.
Other rules are also being relaxed across the parliamentary estate, with one of the most popular bars, Strangers, due to open its doors for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak began last March. The twice-daily briefing of political journalists in Downing Street that has also been conducted remotely for the last 16 months will also restart again in person from Tuesday.
One of those recently forced to isolate was the deputy speaker Dame Rosie Winterton, who has been temporarily replaced by the Labour MP Judith Cummins.