UK Imposes National Lockdown as New Covid-19 Strain Spreads

The imposition of a third national lockdown came after the government’s chief medical officers warned that the more contagious tension was rapidly spreading across the country and that some hospitals were at risk of being overwhelmed within three weeks if new restrictions were not put in place.

There are now more Covid-19 patients in UK hospitals than at the height of the spring pandemic. Mr Johnson said the fight against the virus had reached a critical stage. “It is clear that we need to do more together to get this new variety under control,” he said.

The British government is engaged in a logistical race to vaccinate the population to slow the spread of the virus and protect vulnerable people. Britain has moved faster than other European countries to approve and roll out Covid-19 vaccines. So far in the UK more than a million people have received a vaccine against Covid-19

However, the new variant of the virus has been in the country since December and is spreading quickly, British government scientists warned. Mr. Johnson said scientists estimated it to be 50% to 70% more transferable than previous variants.

Epidemiologists model that stopping the exponential spread of the virus requires the immunization of about two million people per week and strict social remote restrictions. Additional concern is the arrival of another highly contagious mutation of the virus from South Africa.

The number of infections in the UK has already started to rise. The number of people who tested positive for Covid-19 has doubled in the past week to 366,000 as of Monday. The number of hospital admissions has increased by 30% in a week. The number of deaths in the week rose by a quarter to 4,228.

The run-up to the latest lockdown was marked by Mr Johnson’s gradual tightening of the rules amid uproar from scientific advisers who said the UK’s system of regionally adapted restrictions was not working. Also on Sunday, Mr. Johnson urged parents to send their children to school whenever possible.

The government held back announcing a tighter nationwide lockdown pending evidence of how tighter social restrictions in the south of the country were affecting the spread of the virus.

Earlier on Monday, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon moved to lock Scotland until the end of January.

With the launch of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and Oxford University on Monday, government officials hope vaccination coverage can rise significantly in the second half of the month. Britain has already set up nearly 1,000 mass injection sites across the country and has called upon thousands of retired nurses and doctors to administer the injections. The government is in a rush to vaccinate the 13 million Britons most at risk from the virus.

“We are now rolling out the largest vaccination program in our history,” said Mr. Johnson. In mid-February, anyone most at risk for the virus should have received an injection of a vaccine, he said. At that point, many restrictions can be lifted, Mr. Johnson said.

Both the AstraZeneca Oxford Injection and the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc.

and BioNTech SE, previously approved in the UK in December, requires two doses to be fully effective.

Amid a supply bottleneck, Britain wants to get more vaccine for more people by increasing the time between the first and second dose, hoping to give more people immunity by giving more people an injection before taking a second to get.

At the end of last month, the UK’s Chief Medical Officers wrote to health workers arguing that a 12-week interval between shots would allow more people to receive a basic level of protection. “As with all decisions during this pandemic, it’s about the balance between risks and benefits,” they wrote.

Some experts question whether data supports this approach. Pfizer said there was no data to prove that a single dose of its vaccine provided protection after 21 days. But a committee advising the UK government on vaccination and immunization said last month that there was no evidence that the Pfizer injection would work any differently from the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, the latter of which showed a strong immune response after an extended period between injections. .

Even with higher vaccination coverage, restrictions will likely still be needed for some time. A study from Imperial College London found that the new mutant variant of the coronavirus increases the “R” number – or the number of people who, on average, infect each person with the infection – by 0.4 to 0.7. That could offset the effect of the existing social distance restrictions in place in much of the country before Monday.

This is the third time the UK has introduced a national lockdown. Lockdowns were already implemented in the UK in March and November to slow the spread of the virus.

“Now more than ever we need to work together,” said Mr Johnson. “We are entering the final phase of the battle.”

Write to Max Colchester at [email protected]