Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

News

COVID-19: British PM Imposes Fresh Total Lockdown On London

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street to head for the House of Commons as parliament discusses Brexit, sitting on a Saturday for the first time since the 1982 Falklands War, in London, Britain, October 19, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Nicholson NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a full lockdown on London and large parts of southeast England and told the public across the country to avoid travel, in a desperate attempt to stop a new strain of coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in the UK, Bloomberg reported Saturday.

After emergency talks with his most senior officials, Johnson canceled plans to ease pandemic restrictions for five days during the holiday. Household mixing will be banned in London and the south-east and socializing restricted to just Christmas Day across the rest of England.

The premier announced a new Tier 4 will apply in the hot-spot areas around the capital from Sunday, with all non-essential shops closing, millions of people ordered to stay at home and all foreign travel banned except for essential purposes. Johnson urged people across England to “stay local” and not travel far. He promised the new rules will be reviewed on Dec. 30.

“When the virus changes its method of attack we must change our method of defense,” Johnson said at a news conference. “Without action the evidence suggests infections would soar, hospitals would become overwhelmed and many thousands more would lose their lives.”

The dramatic escalation in the government’s pandemic response was triggered by a new strain of the virus that is virtually unique to the UK Emerging scientific evidence suggests the new strain can spread significantly more quickly than previous strains in circulation and is behind a huge surge in infections in recent days.

Covid-19 case rates nearly doubled in London over the past week, with almost 60% of these infections attributed to the new strain of the virus, according to government officials.

__________

Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng

Copyright 2015 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement

Related

News

Federal government has announced the disbursement of N45.3 billion to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory under the Nigeria...

News

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is keeping tabs on the new omicron sub-variant XBB.1.16, dubbed “Arcturus” by those tracking the virus. XBB.1.16 is currently...

News

The Federal Government has approved the immediate relaxation of the COVID-19 safety measures and travel advisory, including the suspension of all pre-departure, pre-boarding, and...

News

India saw a single-day rise of 2,112 new infections raising the COVID-19 tally to 4,46,40,748, while the number of active cases declined to 24,043,...

Copyright ©