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Ministers were reported on Friday to be considering a second national shutdown, after new COVID-19 cases nearly doubled to 6,000 a day.
A video capture of footage broadcast by the Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU) of the UK Parliament shows British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reacting during the debate on the Brexit withdrawal agreement bill in the House of Commons in London on October 22, 2019. Image: AFP
LONDON – The UK is experiencing a second wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday, as millions of people faced new restrictions and the government warned that another national lockdown could be imminent.
“There is no question, as I have said for several weeks, that we could wait and now we are seeing a second wave coming,” Johnson said while touring the site of a new vaccine center in Didcot, near Oxford.
“We are seeing it in France, in Spain, throughout Europe; I fear that it has been absolutely inevitable that we will see it in this country.”
Ministers were reported on Friday to be considering a second national shutdown, after new COVID-19 cases nearly doubled to 6,000 a day, hospital admissions rose and infection rates skyrocketed in parts of northern England and London.
His grim announcement came when government scientific advisers said the R number, which represents the number of people to whom an infected person will transmit the virus, has risen to between 1.1 and 1.4, from 1.0. to 1.2 last week.
“This is undoubtedly concerning,” said Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University.
“Even at growth rates within the estimated range, the number of new cases could grow to high levels rapidly if interventions are not effective enough.”
That increase in cases was part of a second wave that was now unstoppable, the prime minister said.
“Now we are seeing a second wave coming … I’m afraid it is absolutely inevitable that we will see it in this country,” Johnson told the UK media.
When asked if the entire country should prepare for a new blockade, rather than just local restrictions, he said: “I don’t want to enter a second national blockade at all.”
But he did not rule out the introduction of more national restrictions.
“When you look at what is happening, you have to ask yourself if we need to go beyond the rule of six that we brought in on Monday,” he said, referring to the ban on gatherings of more than six people.
The United Kingdom has reported the fifth highest number of deaths from COVID-19 in the world, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
The official number of new positive cases in the UK soared by nearly 1,000 on Friday to 4,322, the highest since May 8, after a separate ONS model reported some 6,000 new cases a day in England for the week until September 10.
That was up from modeling 3,200 cases per day in the previous week, with the North West and London seen as hot spots.
Health Minister Matt Hancock called a second national shutdown a last resort on Friday and when asked about it said, “I can’t give you that answer right now.”
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