National lockdown imposed across England, Boris Johnson announces

England will be plunged into a tough new national lockdown, Boris Johnson has announced, with schools closed and people ordered to stay at home until mid-February in a bid to slow the rampant spread of coronavirus.

In a televised address on Monday evening, the Prime Minister said the new restrictions - the strictest blanket restrictions imposed since the start of the outbreak in March - would come into law as soon as possible, but urged people to start following the rules immediately.  

All schools and colleges in England will be closed until after the February half-term, except for children of key workers and the vulnerable.

However, early years settings such as nurseries, alternative provision and special schools will remain open.

People will be required to stay at home except in specific circumstances, including for food shopping, caregiving, medical care, exercise, and fleeing violence.

Everyone should work from home unless it is impossible to do so, for example those in construction or key workers.

Restaurants will be able to continue providing takeaway and deliveries, but takeaway or click-and-collect of alcohol will no longer be allowed.

Police will have legal powers to enforce the rules through fines and dispersing orders.

Announcing the latest raft of measures, Mr Johnson returned to his mantra from early in the pandemic and urged people to “stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives” as the UK enters the “last phase of the struggle”.

“I want to say to everyone right across the UK that I know how tough this is," he said. 

“And I know how frustrated you are and I know that you have had more than enough of Government guidance about defeating this virus.

“But now, more than ever, we must pull together.”

Mr Johnson said all schools in England will shut with learning moved online from tomorrow, a move which he said means “it’s not possible or fair for all exams to go ahead this summer, as normal”.

He said Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will work with regulator Ofqual to put in place “alternative arrangements”.

The PM added: “We will provide extra support to ensure that pupils entitled to free school meals will continue to receive them while schools are closed, and we will distribute more devices to support remote education.”

He also said parents “may reasonably ask why” decisions on schools were not taken “sooner”.

“The answer is simply that we’ve been doing everything in our power to keep schools open because we know how important each day in education is to children’s life chances,” the Prime Minister added.

“And I want to stress that the problem is not that schools are unsafe for children. Children are still very unlikely to be severely affected by even the new variant of Covid.

“The problem is that schools may nonetheless act as vectors for transmission, causing the virus to spread between households.”

On the length of the shutdown, Mr Johnson suggested England could “steadily” move out of lockdown from mid-February.

But, urging caution about the timetable, he said: “If our understanding of the virus doesn’t change dramatically, once again, if the rollout of the vaccine programme continues to be successful, if deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect and – critically – if everyone plays their part by following the rules, then I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown, reopening schools after the February half-term and starting cautiously to move regions down the tiers.”

The Prime Minister said the lockdown was needed because the new variant – which is 50 per cent to 70 per cent more transmissible – was spreading in a “frustrating and alarming” manner.

“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic,” he said.

The Prime Minister said that in England the number of Covid patients in hospitals has increased by nearly a third in the last week to almost 27,000 – some 40 per cent higher than the first peak in April.

He said that, on December 29 “more than 80,000 people tested positive for Covid across the UK”, the number of deaths is up by 20 per cent over the last week “and will sadly rise further”.

“With most of the country, or maybe under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out.

“In England we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to contain this variant.”

The measures are thought to have received cabinet approval during an emergency call on Monday afternoon, and ministers from the UK’s four nations were also briefed on the Prime Minister’s announcement.

It comes amid fears that the new, more-infectious variant of Covid-19 that has ripped through London and the South East in recent weeks, bringing some health services to near-breaking point, is now taking hold in other parts of the country.

More than 58,000 new cases were reported in the UK on Monday, a new high in the pandemic, with 407 further deaths.

Figures showed there were 26,626 covid patients in hospital in England – an increase of over 30 per cent on the same day a week before.England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, tweeted: “COVID cases are rising rapidly across the UK in large part due to the new variant.

“The NHS is treating many more COVID patients and vaccinating vulnerable citizens. NHS staff deserve our profound thanks. But we must act now or the NHS will come under even greater pressure.”

Ahead of Mr Johnson’s address it was announced that the UK’s coronavirus alert level would be raised to five - the highest - as top medics warned of services being “overwhelmed”.

In a joint statement the Chief Medical Officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the NHS was already under “immense pressure”, adding: “We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days.”

The case rate in London up to 30 December was more than 950 per 100,000 people, up from 166 on 1 October. That is more than a five-fold increase

The Prime Minister’s address came after Nicola Sturgeon announced that Scotland would enter a national lockdown from midnight on Monday, with schools and nurseries closed.

Pupils in Welsh schools and colleges will be taught online until at least January 18, the country’s education minister said.

The rapid developments of Monday afternoon overshadowed the start of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out earlier in the day.

Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, was the first to receive the jab at 7.30am.

The vaccine has been hailed as a “game-changer” in the fight against Covid-19 and is much easier to store than the UK’s other approved jab, developed by Pfizer.

But despite the Health Secretary promising a “massive ramp-up” in vaccination numbers, the UK is now facing more months of restrictions, illness — and deaths.

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