(19 Jul 2021) Prosecco, confetti, a midnight countdown: It's not New Year's Eve, but it might as well be for England's clubgoers.
After 17 months of empty dancefloors, the country's nightclubs are reopening with a bang.
From London to Liverpool, thousands of young people danced the night away as the clock struck midnight on Monday, when almost all coronavirus restrictions in England were scrapped.
Face masks will no longer be legally required, social distancing rules have been scrapped and there will be no more limits on people attending theatres or big events.
Nightclubs, which have been shuttered since the start of the pandemic, can finally reopen with no restrictions on crowds or requirements for masking and testing. Many reopening parties have sold out days ahead.
Davina Presad, 37, who attended a party at the London club The Piano Works said it was a relief to dance again.
"I think the energy releasing all this stress you know working from home for such a long time so it's going to be amazing."
But club goer Nick Newcombe said he planned to leave before the dancing started as it was too risky.
Tristan Moffat, operations director of The Piano Works, said it was the moment he and his customers had been waiting for.
The business is keen to open its doors again after losing about 40,000 pounds ($55,352) a month since restrictions began last March, he said.
But while entertainment businesses and ravers are jubilant, many others are deeply worried about the British government’s decision to go ahead with fully reopening the economy and no longer mandating masks at a time when COVID-19 cases are on a rapid upswing.
More than 54,000 new cases were confirmed on Saturday, the highest daily number since January, although reported virus deaths have stayed comparatively low so far.
Officials have repeatedly expressed confidence that the U.K.'s country’s vaccine rollout - 67.8% of adults, or just over half of the total population, has received two doses - will keep the threat to public health at bay.
But leading international scientists on Friday described England’s “Freedom Day” as a threat to the whole world, and 1,200 scientists backed a letter to British medical journal The Lancet that criticized the government's decision.
Even Prime Minister Boris Johnson's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, warned that "we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast."
Johnson himself struck a solemn, cautious tone last week, as he played down talk of freedom and stressed that life would not instantly revert to how it was pre-pandemic.
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