New Covid guidelines will allow two regular indoor visitors at care homes from April 12.

Current rules permit care home residents to have just one face-to-face visitor, but the government has now issued updated guidance.

With further lockdown restrictions to ease by April 12, care home residents can now have two visitors at a time.

Visitors will be tested before entering the premises and must wear PPE, but they will be granted the ability to hold hands with their loved ones.

Babies, toddlers and young children will not count as the ‘two’ visitors, meaning that some residents will get to physically reunite with their grandchildren for the first time in a while.

However, the government has not specified the up to what age someone classifies as a ‘young child’, but full updated guidance will be published later this week.

This comes after guidance first permitted one face-to-face visitor from early March, which conveniently came just in time before Mother’s Day, benefitting many care home residents.