UK PM Announces New Lockdown for England

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that England will enter another national lockdown, the third of its kind since the coronavirus pandemic began in the country early last year. In a televised address he urged people across the country to “stay at home” except for permitted reasons to contain the more contagious variant of the coronavirus.

Under the new lockdown, people are only allowed to go to work if it’s impossible to work from home, such as construction workers. Britons will be allowed to go out to shop for necessities including food and medicines, and to exercise, ideally once a day and locally. Non-essential shops and hospitality would have to remain closed, while primary and secondary schools would close from today.

Johnson said schools were “not unsafe” and children are “very unlikely” to be significantly affected by even the new Covid-19 variant, which was first discovered in the country last month and is said to be 70 per cent more transmissible. But schools may “act as vectors of transmission, causing the virus to spread between households”, he said.