Newspaper headlines: ‘Faster path to freedom’ and stamp duty ‘to be extended’

image captionWednesday’s front pages continue to focus on how the UK will emerge from lockdown. The Daily Telegraph claims the prime minister’s roadmap in England “could be accelerated” if data on the effect of vaccines is better than expected. The paper says it has been told by government sources that some of the timings set out by Boris Johnson on Monday could be reviewed.

image captionThe government is preparing to extend the stamp duty holiday by three months until the end of June, according to the Times. It says the move is an attempt by Chancellor Rishi Sunak “to keep the property market firing” as Britain emerges from lockdown.

image caption“Stampede for the great getaway” is the headline in the Daily Express, which says “lockdown-weary Britons” sent foreign holiday bookings soaring by 600%. It puts the surge down to a combination of the PM’s “optimistic roadmap” and the Covid vaccine rollout.

image captionThe same story leads the Daily Mirror, which calls it “the Great British take-off”. It carries a warning from consumer group Which? saying that making foreign travel plans is “risky”.

image captionThe Metro focuses on the prime minister saying that vaccine passports will be inevitable for foreign travel – and may also be needed to go to pubs and workplaces in the UK. The paper says Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has been tasked with looking into the possibility of “Covid status certificates”.

image captionMinisters are being urged to offer door-to-door vaccine jabs in “hard to reach, deprived and minority ethnic communities”, according to the Guardian. It says the calls have come amid mounting fears that coronavirus risks becoming a “disease of the poor”.

image captionThe i newspaper leads on schools in England giving catch-up lessons during the holidays to help children who have missed six months of classroom time because of the pandemic. It says schools will be given millions in extra dedicated funding to run the classes.

image captionThe impact of the pandemic in the United States is the lead in the Financial Times, which carries comments from the chair of the US Federal Reserve saying there is “hope for a return to more normal conditions” this year. It reports he signalled to Congress that the US central bank intended to maintain its “heavy support of the economy”.

image caption“Tiger’s terror” is the headline in the Daily Star, which reports that golf superstar Tiger Woods had suffered multiple leg injuries after a “horrific car crash”.

image captionA picture of the crash scene is also splashed across the front of the Sun, which says the golfer was cut free by firefighters after his SUV careered up an embankment before overturning near Los Angeles in California.

image captionAnd a former judge is calling for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the granting of search warrants in the VIP child sex abuse inquiry, reports the Daily Mail.