In an interview on the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show”, Johnson was pressured whether the restrictions currently in place in the worst affected areas of England are doing enough, as hospitals fill up with Covid-19 patients.
“We may have to do things in the coming weeks that will be more difficult in many parts of the country, I am fully reconciled to that,” Johnson said. “I bet the people of this country are reconciled to that,” he added.
Under pressure to explain what those tighter restrictions might be, Johnson said: “There are clearly a series of tougher measures we should consider. I don’t want to speculate, I’m not going to speculate now about what they might be.
“Obviously, the closure of schools we had to do in March is one of those things (…),” he added, as the controversy over the government’s mixed reports of school reopening remains in the headlines. dominate.
Echoing his warning about the same program last October, Johnson warned, “It’s bumpy and it’s going to be bumpy.”
But the prime minister insisted that the situation across the country would improve by spring as more people are vaccinated.
Under the current system, most of England is subject to the strictest Tier 3 and Tier 4 restrictions – with the latter in effect for all of London – with a strict stay-at-home notice.
On Saturday, the UK registered the highest daily increase in coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, with an additional 57,725 new cases of coronavirus and 445 deaths. The country is one of the most affected countries in Europe, with a total of more than 2.6 million infections and nearly 75,000 deaths.
But some scientists have warned that stricter measures are needed to control a new, more contagious variant of the virus that has spread across London, South East England and parts of Wales in particular in recent weeks.
Some London hospitals are now nearly two-thirds full of Covid-19 patients, President of the Royal College of Physicians Andrew Goddard said Saturday.
Both primary and secondary schools in London and some other parts of South East England will remain closed to personal learning for the next two weeks, except for vulnerable students and children of critical workers. Across England, the return of high school students has been delayed.
Mass vaccination hopes
The UK government is hoping for a return to a sort of normalcy of rapid introduction of vaccinations, giving preference to the elderly and those who are clinically vulnerable, as well as health and social workers.
When asked about the number of available doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which was approved by British regulators on Wednesday, Johnson told Marr there would be 530,000 doses as of Monday, on top of “the million or so”. Pfizer / BioNTechCovid-19 vaccine has already been distributed.
However, he could not say how many doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine were ready to be administered.
“We really hope we can do tens of millions [of Covid-19 vaccines] I can certainly give you that figure in the next three months, ”said the prime minister.
Johnson said this strategy was based on the use of three vaccines, the Pfizer / BioNTech and Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines – both of which were approved in the UK last month – and the Moderna vaccine, which would be ready “soon”. for use.
Echoing what he said on the same program last October, Johnson said, “I thought things would be better by spring. I’ll stick with that.”
Earlier on Sunday, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted that the country had administered 1 million Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine doses, saying “the end is in sight.”
Batches of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive in ready-to-use hospitals starting Monday.
The vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute than the Pfizer / BioNTech shot because it can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures for at least six months. Both the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines must be stored frozen.
New variant threat
Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted on Sunday that her cabinet would meet the next day to “consider further measures to limit the spread” of the more contagious variety that has pushed up infection rates in England – and that she would recall Parliament to hear his decision.
“We, like other countries, are in a race between this faster spread of Covid strain and the vaccination program,” she said.
“All the decisions just made are difficult, with dire consequences. Vaccines offer us a way out, but this new species makes the period between now (and) then the most dangerous since the start of the pandemic. So the responsibility of the government must be to act quickly. act (and) decisively in the national interest, ”she said.
Johnson opposed Marr’s suggestion that his administration had failed to fully prepare for the challenges of the winter and the possibility of a mutation in the coronavirus, despite being ordered by the government in July. the government had been warned of the threats.
“This administration has taken all steps reasonably possible to prepare this country for the effects of the winter,” Johnson said. “What we could not have foreseen, I think reasonably, was the arrival of a new variant of the virus, which spread between 50 and 70% faster. Once we understood that on, I think, December 18th … we took decisive action. “
As of January 1, at least 30 countries, including the United States, had reported cases of the more contagious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK.
According to health officials, there is no evidence that the variant is more deadly or causes more serious illness.