Fan plan to return to football 'paused'

Proposals for fans to be allowed back at live sporting events in England from 1 October have been shelved due to a rise in coronavirus cases.

à series of pilot events restricted to 1,000 people had gone ahead with a view to increasing the number of people in attendance. 

However, with the UK's current Covid-19 alert status now at 4 - which means transmission is "high or rising exponentially" - the plans scheduled for October have been put on hold. 

On Tuesday, minister Michael Gove confirmed that the staged return of fans would be "paused".

"We were looking at a staged programme of more people returning - it wasn't going to be the case that we were going to have stadiums thronged with fans," he said.

"We're looking at how we can, for the moment, pause that programme, but what we do want to do is to make sure that, as and when circumstances allow, get more people back.

"The virus is less likely to spread outdoors than indoors but again it's in the nature of major sporting events that there's a lot of mingling."

Covid-19 news:

• UK could face second nation-wide lockdown in October
• Restrictions tightened in parts of northern England and the Midlands
• France sets new record for daily new coronavirus cases in the country https://t.co/ZaR5JfQi4S pic.twitter.com/GXnyPgbcur

— New Scientist (@newscientist) September 18, 2020