Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a new nationwide lockdown for England on Monday in an attempt to get a new variation of the coronavirus. In a televised address, Johnson called the coming weeks a “critical moment” in the country’s fight against COVID-19. The Scotland leader announced similar measures the previous day.
The new measure forces the closure of all schools, shutters for personal care such as hairdressers and hairdressers, and bans personal dining in restaurants. While fines apply to those who leave their homes without valid excuses, there are exceptions that allow people to eat out for medical supplies, go to and from daycare, or in real-life emergencies.
Residents are asked to limit outdoor exercise to once a day. Residents of England can only meet one other person from another household for outdoor exercise, and social distance must be maintained.
Johnson said he understood the “discomfort and grief” that the rapid school closures would have for families, many of whom had sent elementary school children back to school earlier on Monday in what turned out to be a one-day school week, and for teachers.
“We have done everything we can to keep schools open because we know how important every day in education is to the opportunities in children’s lives,” Johnson said. “The problem is not that schools are unsafe for children – it is still very unlikely that children will be seriously affected by the new variant of COVID – the problem is that schools can still act as transmission vectors, allowing the virus to spread between households.”
The new variant of COVID-19 was detected for the first time late last year in South East England, causing a dramatic rise in the number of cases. More than 50,000 new cases of coronavirus are registered daily and hospitals in some regions are already overloaded by an influx of patients. Johnson said the new variant is between 50 and 70% more transferable, making it much easier to catch and pass on to others.
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Before the announcement, more than two-thirds of Britain was already under the strictest “Tier 4” restrictions. “It’s critical that if everyone does their part by following the rules, I hope we can get out of the lockdown steadily,” Johnson said.
The rapidly spreading variant of COVID-19 has already appeared elsewhere in the world. Most recently it was detected in New York, California and Colorado, in patients without any recent travel history. According to the top infectious disease expert in the US, Dr. Anthony Fauci, there are “probably more cases” of the new species still undiscovered in the US.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 2.7 million people have contracted COVID-19 in the UK, with more than 75,000 dead.
Tucker Reals and Charlie D’Agata contributed to this report.