The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has announced tonight (Monday) that England is going into a new lockdown with immediate effect due to the new variant of coronavirus and the pressure on hospitals and the NHS.
People are instructed to stay at home and only go out for essential shopping, legal reasons, health reasons, to exercise or work, with recommendations to work from home as far as possible, and non-essential travel is forbidden.
Primary and secondary schools are to be closed except for vulnerable children and those of key workers, with pupils returning to remote learning, and they hope to reopen them after the February half term.
The Prime Minister highlighted that hospitals in some areas are under more pressure than at any other time of the pandemic, and could be in a dire situation in 3 weeks time, with 40% more Covid patients in hospitals than lastvyear at the height of the crisis.
Johnson did highlight the big difference this time round is the presence of the vaccine, and the fact that the UK has vaccinated more people than the rest of Europe put together, and hope to have everyone in the top four priority groups of people vaccinated by the middle of February.
