The PM hopes to publish details next month of the criteria he will use to start easing the lockdown in England, a senior government source has said.
The criteria will include death and hospitalisation numbers, progress of vaccinations, virus changes and how lifting rules will affect the epidemic.
Relaxing restrictions will also depend on emerging data about how effectively the vaccine stops virus transmission.
A government adviser said the document is likely to be “pretty broad brush”.
The paper is also expected to mention specific sectors of the economy.
Meanwhile Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told the BBC the government hopes “in the coming days and weeks” to have a “roadmap out of the present lockdown”.
Speaking on the Today programme, he said it was very likely the government will “try to make use of the tiered system” when mapping an exit strategy from the current UK lockdown.
This comes as the UK recorded 100,000 coronavirus deaths, making it the fifth country to get to that figure, coming after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.
Speaking on Tuesday, Boris Johnson said he would be “setting out in more detail as soon as we can when and how we want to get things open again but that will depend on us continuing to beat the disease.”
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told the BBC the prime minister had delayed acting on scientific advice over lockdowns three times and accused the government of making “monumental mistakes”.
But Mr Jenrick insisted the government had taken “the best scientific and medical advice”.
The prime minister is under pressure from some of his own backbenchers to provide more clarity over when Covid restrictions will be lifted.
Last week, chair of the Covid Recovery Group Conservative MP Mark Harper said if the government meets its deadline to vaccinate the top four risk groups by 15 February, then minister should begin easing lockdown by 8 March.
“People must see light at the end of the tunnel and feel hope for the future, and businesses need to be able to plan our recovery,” he said.
Last week the government wouldn’t allow any mention of the lockdown ending.
Now it’s talking openly about how officials are finessing the criteria that will be used to start lifting it.
We can speculate about why. Pressure from Conservative backbenchers? The prime minister’s optimistic personality? To help the country deal with the 100,000 Covid death toll, or to distract from it? Or it’s just what you need to do when civil servants and businesses and schools need to start planning for when this phase of the pandemic inevitably ends?
It’s probably a bit of all of them.
But this upcoming document could be quite vague. It will be about how decisions are made, not necessarily what they are.
And it could all take a very long time. Remember when the first lockdown was lifted? The government published a plan on 11 May but English pubs didn’t re-open until 4 July.
Under the current lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons such as food shopping and exercise.
Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
England’s lockdown laws are due to end on 31 March. Mr Johnson has previously said this date is to allow for a “controlled” easing of restrictions back into local tiers.
Under the tier system, different rules are applied to different parts of the country, depending on factors such as pressure on the NHS, number of cases and rates at which case numbers fall.
Pupils in England are not expected to return to school before the February half term. Mr Johnson has said schools will be reopened “as soon as we can” but did not guarantee that would happen before Easter.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said restrictions in Scotland will continue until mid-February at the earliest.
In Wales, the lockdown will be reviewed at the end of January, but the government has previously said it does not see “much headroom for change”.
Northern Ireland’s lockdown has been extended until 5 March.
