Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a lockdown in the United Kingdom Monday as the coronavirus pandemic surged.
“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from COVID than at any time,” Johnson said in a televised speech. “It’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control. In England, we must therefore go into a national lockdown which is tough enough to combat this variant. That means the government is once again instructing you to stay at home.”
Under the lockdown, people can only leave their homes to buy food and other essentials, to exercise, and to see a doctor. Cafes, bars, and restaurants will be able to serve carryout, but they will not be able to serve alcohol, a rule that is even more restrictive than March’s lockdown. The new restrictions are expected to last until at least Feb. 15.
In addition, all schools, including universities, primary and secondary schools, will move to remote learning beginning Tuesday.
“I want to stress that the problem is not that schools are unsafe to children,” Johnson added. “The problem is that schools may nonetheless act as vectors for transmission, causing the virus to spread between households.”
The United Kingdom is currently facing a variant strain of the coronavirus that may be 50% to 70% more transmissible. The U.K. recorded 58,784 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, the seventh day in a row that new cases have exceeded 50,000. Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 grew 40% in the last week and is now higher than during the last peak in March.
This is the third lockdown in the U.K. in less than a year. The first one occurred in mid-March 2020 and didn’t end until May. The second occurred in November but was not nearly as restrictive. Certain businesses had to close, but schools remained open.
Johnson tried to offer Britain some hope by stating that by the middle of February, it might be possible to offer everyone in Britain a coronavirus vaccine.
