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Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered England to return to a national lockdown after the UK passed the milestone of one million COVID-19 cases and a second wave of infections threatened to overwhelm the health service.
The UK, which has the highest official death toll in Europe from COVID-19, is dealing with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day and scientists have warned that the “worst case” scenario of 80,000 deaths could be overcome. .
Johnson, at a hastily convened press conference in Downing Street after news of a lockdown leaked to local media, said that the month-long lockdown in England would begin one minute after midnight Thursday morning and would last Until 2 December.
In some of the most onerous restrictions in Britain’s peacetime history, people will only be allowed to leave home for specific reasons such as education, work, exercise, buying essentials and medicine, or caring for the vulnerable.
“Now is the time to act because there is no alternative,” said Johnson, flanked by his chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and his chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance.
The government will reactivate its emergency coronavirus wage subsidy scheme to ensure that workers who are temporarily laid off during a new lockdown across England receive 80% of their salary.
Essential stores, schools and universities will remain open, Johnson said. Pubs and restaurants will be closed for take away food. All non-essential retailers will be closed.
Johnson’s tightening of restrictions came after scientists warned that the outbreak was headed in the wrong direction and that steps were needed to stop the spread of the virus if families had any hope of reuniting at Christmas.
He went on to say that the prospect of a vaccine in the first quarter of 2021 gives reason for optimism that spring will be better.
“I’m optimistic that this will feel very different and better for the spring. It’s not just that we have better drugs and therapies, and realistic hope for a vaccine in the first quarter of next year,” Johnson said.
“We now have the immediate prospect of using many millions of inexpensive, reliable, and above all rapid response tests … that you can use yourself to find out whether or not it is infectious and get the result in 10 to 15 minutes.”
Johnson was criticized by political opponents for moving too slowly toward the first national lockdown, which ran from March 23 to July 4. He became ill with COVID in late March and was hospitalized in early April.
The measures align England with France and Germany by imposing nationwide restrictions almost as severe as those that led the world economy this year into its deepest recession in generations.
So far, the UK has reported 46,555 deaths from COVID-19, defined as those who die within 28 days of a positive test. A broader death measure of those with COVID-19 on their death certificates gives a figure of 58,925.
The United Kingdom has the fifth highest official death toll in the world, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Reuters
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