Evening summary Boris Johnson has described the roadmap he has published for the lifting of lockdown measures in England as “a one-way road to freedom”. He made the comment at a No 10 press conference, after he spent more than two hours in the Commons setting out his plans to MPs. In the chamber Johnson rejected a call from lockdown-sceptic Tory MPs for all restrictions to be lifted at the end of April, once all adults have had their first dose of vaccine (see 4.47pm), and in his press conference he insisted that he was being cautious. In response to a question from the political editor of the Daily Mail, who suggested he had become a risk-averse “gloomster”, Johnson said: The crocus of hope is poking through the frost and spring is on its way both literally and metaphorically. But I won’t be buccaneering, as you put it, with people’s lives, and nor will anybody in government. I think when people look at this road map I think actually it’s about as dynamic as it’s possible to be under the circumstances and with disease and infection where we are. If you’d said to me a few months ago that by June 21 we were going to be in a position where we thought it was really credible to open up everything including nightclubs, I would have struggled to believe you, quite frankly. But that’s the miracle of the vaccination programme that has delivered that. Johnson claimed that his lockdown plan would be driven by data, not dates, and that the plan for restrictions to be lifted in four stages, tied to four specific dates, with a five-week gap between them, was provisional. But, as Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall points out, the tests being used by the government to determine when further easing can take place (see 12.49pm), are vague. Here is the 60-page document (pdf) setting out the plan. And here is a summary by my colleague Peter Walker. Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has hinted that he would back vaccines being made compulsory for health workers. Speaking at the press conference, he stressed that this was a political matter that was not up to him. But he said: It is a professional responsibility for doctors to do things which will protect their patients. And I expect that to be a professional responsibility for all other health and social care staff as well. He also said there were precedents for rules of this kind. For example, surgeons were expected to have the hepatitis B vaccine, he said. Johnson has said “there may well be a role” for domestic “Covid passports”. For weeks the government has been saying it does not favour using vaccination certificates to control people’s access to jobs or venues or services in the UK. But Johnson has now ordered a review into this. Explaining the change of approach at the press conference, he said: There are clearly some quite complex issues, some ethical issues, issues about discrimination and so on, to what extent can governments either compel or indeed forbid use of such certification. I think all that needs to be gone into so we are going to have a review of the whole issue before we come to it ... There may well be a role for certification but we just need to get it right. Some of the youngest pupils are back in classrooms in Wales and Scotland, but ministers in the two nations have insisted that they will phase the return for other year groups rather than follow the English model of reopening schools to all pupils at the same time. Real-world evidence from the Covid vaccination programmes in England and Scotland show that one dose of vaccine gives high protection against severe disease and admission to hospital – and protects against even mild disease with no symptoms in younger people. Plans for all children in England to be back at school on March 8 are “madness” and risk prolonging the “damaging cycle of stop-start schooling”, head teachers and unions have warned. Johnson says there will be changes to city centres as a result of the pandemic. There may be opportunities for more housing in city centres. But he does not think there will be “fundamental change” to the way cities work. He says, the more people can communicate virtually, the more people want to talk face to face. He thinks that will come back, he says, provided people have confidence about coming back to city centres. He says Covid could become something like flu, that we have to manage. Then life will come to normal, he says. And that’s it. The press conference is over. Vallance says he thinks it is likely people will be wearing masks next winter. But he says he does not expect “a whole raft of NPIs [non-pharmaceutical interventions] in place” in place next winter affecting where people can go. Johnson claims he "won"t be buccaneering with people"s lives" Q: You have become very cautious, unlike the PM who won the election. Have you become a gloomster? Johnson does not accept that. But he says he will not be “buccaneering” with people’s lives. The crocus of hope is poking through the frost, and spring is on its way, both literally and metaphorically. But I won’t be buccaneering, as you put it, with people’s lives, and nor will anybody in government. (Critics would says that this was exactly the mistake Johnson did make last year, when repeatedly talked up the prospects of an early return to normality and when he resisted calls for a second lockdown as case numbers started.) Q: It is reported that you had concerns about all pupils going back at once. Do you? And can you reassure parents this will be safe? Whitty says he was surprised to read this story. He had denied it. It was reported anyway. He says there are big benefits from children being in school. And the risks to children are low. Given the small residual risks, the benefits of children being in schools are clear. But there is an issue to do with the impact of school reopening on R, the reproduction number. He says the Easter holidays will provide a natural firebreak. And measures like testing, and the wider use of masks, will bring down the risks posed by school reopening to R rising, he suggests. He says schools need to be a safe working environment. Relative to other professions, like nursing and social care, teaching is not a high risk profession. Vallance says it is crucial children go back to school. The environment has been made safe. When children go back, there will be just three weeks before the Easter holiday. Q: How can you be sure these measures will be irreversible? Will you have to resign if there is another lockdown? Johnson says he hopes this will irreversible. He thinks the timetable is reasonable. He does not address the resignation point. Johnson says there "may well be role" for domestic Covid passports Q: There is no reference to R in the four tests. (See 12.49pm.) What rate of infection should cause us concern? Whitty says, until we had vaccination, rising cases always meants rising deaths. But vaccination can break that link, he says. He says lifting restrictions will lead to a “surge” in cases. But vaccinations can do the “heavy lifting”, he says. Q: You seem to have changed your mind on vaccine certificates. (See 7.08pm.) Why? Johnson says vaccine certificates are likely to be important for international travel. As for using them domestically, the issues are complex. Can government compel or forbid their use? He says it is worth having a review to look at these issues. There may well be a role for certification - we just need to get it right. Q: How many more deaths are we likely to see when restrictions are eased? And what do you expect vaccine rollout to be? Whitty says he is wary of putting numbers into the public domain. Often they are not meaningful. But he says, every year, flu kills about 9,000 people. Coronavirus will add to the list of illnesses that kills like this, he says. He says it is likely to be a something that kills people every winter. On uptake, he says it has been incredibly high. In some cases it has been well over 90%. He hopes this continues. Vallance says deaths can be minimised by going slowly and everyone sticking to the rules. Q: Will the UK commit to a fair and equitable global vaccine rollout once the top nine groups have been vaccinated? Yes, says Johnson. He says the government supports Covax. There is no point having a vaccination programme confined to one country. (One suspect that the PM’s definition of an equitable global vaccine rollout and the questioner’s are not the same.) And Johnson starts coughing. Bad sign ... Q: How will you continue with the vaccine rollout when people start needing their second dose? Johnson says the government thinks it has the supplies in place to keep up the current pace of vaccination. Whitty says the PM also asked him to talk about the five-week gap between each stage of lockdown easing. He says it takes about four weeks to measure what impact lifting measures is having. That is why a five-week gap has been scheduled: four weeks for the data to emerge, and a week to evaluate it. He ends by stressing that there are still a lot of people in hospital. Here is the slide he showed earlier with hospital figures. Whitty is now summing up the results of the studies out today about the effectiveness of the vaccines. My colleague Sarah Boseley wrote those findings up here. Whitty shows the figures for vaccinations. And he shows a chart showing Covid hospital outcomes, by age. This shows that most deaths are amongst people over the age of 70, who have all now been offered the vaccine. But there are large numbers of younger people in hospital with Covid too, Whitty says. Whitty is now presenting the slides. Here are the latest figures for deaths. Johnson says we cannot persist indefinitely with lockdown. The balance of judgement - whether to lock down, or ease off - is now shifting in our favour. He says the summer will be “incomparably better” - and there will be no going back. Johnson says these measures are for England. But the government will continue to do what it can to protect jobs in all parts of the UK, he says. Johnson is now summing up what happens when steps one, two, three and four are reached. There is a summary here. Johnson says more deaths inevitable whenever lockdown lifted But Johnson says no vaccine is 100% effective. He says we must be “realistic”, and accept that lifting restrictions will lead to more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths. That would happen even if the lifting of lockdown were delayed for six or nine months, he says. Johnson says UK now on a "one-way road to freedom" Johnson has arrived for his press conference. More than 17.7 million people across the UK have been vaccinated, he says. And he says the odds have been shifted in our favour. Vaccination has put a shield around people. With every day that goes by this programme of vaccination is creating a shield around the entire population which means that we are now travelling on a one-way road to freedom. And we can begin safely to restart our lives and do it with confidence.